Inside the '˜evil' Leeds drug factory where gang started international trade

This is the Leeds drugs den used by three men to mix lethal concoctions of drugs that they then shipped across the world.
By The Newsroom
Published 29th May 2018, 18:03 BST
Updated 29th May 2018, 18:22 BST
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The gang has admitted running a dark web business selling the potentially lethal drugs fentanyl and carfentanyl to customers across the UK and worldwide.

Jake Levene, 22, Lee Childs, 45, and Mandy Christopher Lowther, 21, mixed the drugs with bulking agents and then posted them to customers throughout the UK as well as the US, Germany, Norway, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Canada, France, Singapore, Holland and Spain.

They even wrote on one box ‘Know what this is? It is evil’.

Photo issued by the National Crime Agency (NCA) of items in a workshop used by, Jake Levene, 22, Lee Childs, 45 and Mandy Lowther, 21, to make the potentially lethal drug fentanyl and who ran a dark web business selling the drug to customers across the world. PAPhoto issued by the National Crime Agency (NCA) of items in a workshop used by, Jake Levene, 22, Lee Childs, 45 and Mandy Lowther, 21, to make the potentially lethal drug fentanyl and who ran a dark web business selling the drug to customers across the world. PA
Photo issued by the National Crime Agency (NCA) of items in a workshop used by, Jake Levene, 22, Lee Childs, 45 and Mandy Lowther, 21, to make the potentially lethal drug fentanyl and who ran a dark web business selling the drug to customers across the world. PA
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The trio set up a up a business ‘UKBargins’ on the dark web and turned over £163,474 during the indictment period - 1 December 2016 and 30 April 2017 .

Their period of activity coincided with a spike in deaths where toxicology reports showed the drugs were present.

The organised crime group (OCG) sold 2,853 items to 443 customers worldwide with 172 in the UK. Six people identified from the OCG’s UK customer lists are known to have died from fentanyl related deaths, although it cannot be said with certainty the fentanyl they took was supplied by Levene, Childs and Lowther.

The men mixed and exported fentanyl – which is up to 100 times stronger than morphine - and its analogue carfentanyl – which is 10,000 times stronger again, from an industrial unit in Peel Street, Morley, Leeds.

Click here to read more about the case.