British Man Jailed For Importing MDMA From The Netherlands With The Intention To Resell

A few days ago, a man from Wiltshire, the United Kingdom, was sentenced to prison for ordering crystal MDMA and ecstasy pills from the Netherlands, which he intended to resell to his customers locally.

According to the court documents, the 27-year-old Joseph Bailey crawled the dark web to search for narcotics. When he found his desired seller, he ordered the narcotics from the Netherlands. Police reported that the man used bitcoins to purchase the illegal substances. However, customs authorities intercepted the package, after it has arrived at the United Kingdom on a freight plane.

Tessa Hingston from the prosecution told the Swindon Crown Court how the package containing the narcotics was intercepted at the Heathrow Airport. According to the prosecutor, law enforcement authorities found 50 pink and blue pills along with a “crystalline substance”. After a forensic examination of the drugs, officials identified that both substances were containing MDMA with a street value of £400. Hingston added that shortly after the illegal items were seized, officers visited the address of the suspect at Stanton St Quintin and arrested Bailey.

During the house search, law enforcement authorities seized two bags containing a small amount of cannabis along with £140 in cash. Officers also confiscated the iPhone and the computer of the defendant for further evaluation. Law enforcement authorities also found a number of similar envelopes from the Netherlands, which were identical to the one they had seized at Heathrow. On the phone of the suspect, law enforcement authorities found a photo of Bailey standing next to a cannabis plant as well as a variety of text messages pointing to the illegal activities of the defendant. In one message Bailey was if asked he has “any pills to sell”, to which he replied that he has, “but they are £10 each”.

According to the prosecution, when the defendant was questioned by the police, he said that he had no idea why the drugs were sent to him, he only bought some vinyl records from Europe. However, later on, Bailey pleaded guilty to importing class A drugs and to the possession of cannabis. Guy Draper from defense said that it had been an “extremely unsophisticated” operation, where his client imported narcotics from the Netherlands.

“He sought, through the dark web with the assistance of Bitcoin currency, to buy them anonymously,” he said.

“But he had them delivered to his home address in his own name. It goes some way to demonstrate the nature of this activity,” Draper added.

According to the lawyer, the messages on his client’s phone was from “a long time ago” when he would share pills with his friends shortly after he started using them to deal with his anxiety issues. Draper emphasized that after Bailey was arrested, kept himself clean of narcotics, had a job working with his father, and now he is in a relationship.

However, Judge Tim Mousley stated that the crime the defendant committed was so serious that there has to be a custodial sentence. The judge said that he agrees that the whole drug operation was unsophisticated, however, the crime can’t just be dismissed “as an error of judgment”. Judge Mousley sentenced Bailey to two years and four months in prison.