A lottery-winning pensioner from north-west England has used his jackpot to become a drug lord by setting up a £288 million pill factory in his cottage.
An elderly National Lottery winner set up a drug lab in his country cottage, producing fake prescription pills worth up to £288 million (close to KM 670 million).
John Eric Spiby – who had a “significant” criminal record – won the £2.4m jackpot in 2010 aged 65.
But the millionaire and pensioner used the money to build a sophisticated counterfeit drugs laboratory in outbuildings at his cottage near Wigan, Greater Manchester.
Along with his son and two associates, Spiby set up a second drug factory in Salford to flood the streets with “unregulated, unlicensed and untested” drugs, reports Guardian.
Industrial scale equipment
Desperate users who bought the pills were playing “Russian roulette” with their lives, prosecutors said, as drug-related deaths rose in the area.
However, the group was under police surveillance, and when officers finally raided the rented van, they found 2.6 million counterfeit Diazepam tablets, with a street value of up to £5.2 million.
Police raided a number of facilities and found firearms and ammunition, as well as money and industrial machinery for making pills.
Spiby senior, now 80, has denied any knowledge of the plot but has been convicted of drug-related offences.
Sentencing him to 16-and-a-half years in prison on Tuesday, the judge told him he was “tall in name and role”.
“Despite winning the lottery, you continued to live a life of crime after reaching the normal retirement age,” said Judge Nicholas Clarke, from Bolton.
His son, John Colin Spiby, and his associate Lee Drury were sentenced to more than 18 years in prison.
Another gang member, 35-year-old Callum Dorrian, was jailed for 12 years at a previous hearing.
Spiby Sr.’s lab across the street from his cottage had blacked out windows to hide what was going on inside.
Industrial-scale equipment was capable of producing tens of thousands of tablets per hour.
Drury used his company Nutra Inc. as a front to cover up illegal business, Bolton Crown Court heard.
Between June 2020 and May 2022, £200,000 worth of machinery and ingredients were bought and the tablets were sold at 65p each.
“Fire” because of “WhatsApp for criminals”
The plot was foiled after French law enforcement deciphered incriminating messages on encrypted EncroChat exchanges – dubbed WhatsApp for criminals.
The messages revealed that they discussed raw materials and the possibility of switching to drug synthesis to maximize their profits.
The recipe for making the drug was saved on Drury’s phone.
Dorrian’s EncroChat username Fallensod was linked to the supply of firearms, including an AK-47, Uzi, Tec 9, Scorpion, Grand Power pistol, silencers and ammunition, police said.
On April 1, 2022, officers spotted Dorrian and Drury loading an Enterprise rental van with boxes to be delivered to a hotel in Manchester.
The shipment was intercepted and more than 2.5 million pills were found with an estimated street value of between £1,040,000 and £5,200,000.
On May 17, 2022, officers executed a series of warrants that resulted in the seizure of three valid firearms, ammunition, cash and significant quantities of counterfeit pills and raw materials.
All four men were then arrested and detained.
(TYPE/Source: Faktor.ba/Photo: Greater Manchester Police)
