A chemist from Fulham who hoped to flood the UK with homemade illegal erectile dysfunction medication has been jailed for 40 months.
Chistiaan Winkel aged 32 left his job at University College London to make fake Cialis tablets. The Old Bailey heard the Dutchman set up a laboratory in an east London flat where he also planned to make the banned drug ecstasy.
He admitted conspiracy to defraud Lilly UK and conspiracy to manufacture ecstasy. Winkel imported a pill-making machine and precursor chemicals from China, producing samples to show a "potential dealer".
However the dealer proved to be an undercover police officer who had got involved after Winkel unwittingly made contact with investigators on a website. He offered them pills for male impotence.
The judge, Recorder Douglas Day, QC, told him: "You are a highly-intelligent man with great talent.”It is a tragedy to find you here." Det Insp Doug Blackwood, from City of London Police, said after the trial: "The millionaire lifestyle he hoped this crime would fund must now seem a very long way away."
Winkel's runner Safa Ba Seidi aged 36, of Tottenham, north London, admitted conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to supply ecstasy. He was jailed for 21 months.
When police searched his home they found legitimate substances used in Winkel's chemical import business, along with illegal ecstasy ingredients. Winkel's girlfriend, Yuly Sandoval Mora aged 33, of Holloway, north London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud. She was given an eight-month suspended sentence.
Mick Deats, of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHPRA), said: "This is a rare case of counterfeit medicines being manufactured in the UK. "We generally find that counterfeit medicines found in this country have originated from the Far East."
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