Update In Vendor Case: Swedish GHB Seller Sentenced To Prison

Recently, after the suspect from Jönköping, Sweden admitted most of the offenses he was charged with, the court sentenced him to prison.

In mid-March, we reported that a man in his 40s is standing trial for dark web drug trafficking charges. Now, on April 2, the Jönköping District Court sentenced the 37-year-old (police only released that the alleged perpetrator was in his 40s at the time) defendant to prison.

Law enforcement authorities in December, last year visited a sporting house in the Jönköping area. However, the police patrol was for another case than the 37-year-old’s, but as the officers passed a site, one of them felt a suspected drug odor. According to police information, later on the same day, law enforcement authorities came back to the same site to carry out a search warrant on an outbuilding on the property. The suspect, the 37-year-old owner, claimed that he did not find the key. Police reported that the defendant went to look for the key in the main house. Soon after he went in, he locked the doors and began destroying his computer to eliminate the evidence authorities could gather at his place. However, the officers had seen the man trying to destroy his computer from the outside.

According to the court documents, Swedish investigators arrested the suspect just before Christmas, last year. Soon after the “random inspection” incident, law enforcement authorities carried out a raid on the 37-year-old’s home, where they found a cannabis cultivation, various kinds of narcotics and doping agents. Investigators seized 80 tablets of methandienone, 27 tablets of Mesterolone, 193 methyltestosterone tablets, 50 clomiphene tablets, a vial of HCG (Human chorionic gonadotropin), and a vial of testosterone enanthate. Clomiphene is a medication used to treat infertility in women who do not ovulate, while HCG is a hormone produced by the placenta after implantation. The other substances are steroids, commonly used by bodybuilders, and by athletes who are trying to gain advantage by cheating their way through competitions.

Court documents stated that the suspect ordered (most possibly from a vendor on the dark web) 30 liters of GBL between September 30, 2015, and December 20, 2016. The Jönköping man allegedly used GBL, or gamma-Butyrolactone, to produce GHB, which he sold to customers on dark net marketplaces. He produced at least 60 liters of GHB, and distributed 50 liters of the substance to dark web consumers, police information claimed. Additionally, investigators said that the suspect sold 19.4 grams of marijuana, 110 tablets Lyrica (Pregabalin), four grams of MDMA, and 12 deciliters of GBL when he was active on the dark web. Police estimate the total sales value of the narcotics the man both distributed and kept at his home to be at least 260,000 SEK (about 29,000 USD).

At the March 2 trial of the 37-year-old at the Jönköping District Court, the prosecutor asked the judge to consider the suspect’s crimes as aggravated due to their nature. The prosecution argued that the judge should recognize the fact that the man was dealing with large amounts of narcotics, and the whole operation was carried out professionally, and systematically using encrypted services and communications. The defendant was motivated by the sole purpose of gaining profits through dark web sales. According to the prosecution, the defendant’s illicit activities put young adults at great risk, since the narcotics he sold could get the buyers addicted to a substance, or, if already addicted, could maintain such drug abuses.

The suspect allegedly produced amphetamines and cultivated cannabis, and personally used marijuana and methandienone, the indictment said. Later on, the 37-year-old admitted that he cultivated marijuana for his personal use, not for sales.

The defendant was charged with serious drug offenses, two counts of drug offenses of normal degree, and two counts of minor narcotic offenses and doping offenses. The suspect admitted most of the crimes he committed.

For varying degrees of narcotics and doping offenses, the 37-year-old was sentenced to two years and six months in prison by the Jönköping District Court.