Dark web drugs gang raked in £8k-a-week running fentanyl factory ‘linked to dozens of deaths’ and cops fear deadly toll will never be known
Gary Edwards, 35, is among the dead whose families have been told they were probably killed by super-strength fentanyl from the gang's lab in Morley, Leeds - but authorities can't prove it
AN EVIL drugs gang who harvested enough fentanyl to kill millions while raking in £8,000 a week are feared to have left an 'unsolvable' death toll in their wake.
The three-man operation ran from an industrial unit in suburban Leeds before lethal packages were sold via the dark web and posted through the Royal Mail.
In less than five months, aerospace engineering student Jake Levene, 22, his pal Mandy Lowther, 21, and roofer Lee Childs, 45, turned over £164,000.
The gang were jailed for a total of 43-and-a-half years at Leeds Crown Court today after pleading guilty to exporting and supplying class A drugs.
But the factory's lifespan also coincided with a huge spike in fentanyl-related deaths last year, mainly in Leeds and the north of England.
Sun Online can reveal families of victims such as Gary Edwards, 35, from Leeds, have been told they are 'highly likely' to have died after taking fentanyl produced in the lab.
Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act also show how the spike of 75 deaths in 2017 centred around the fentanyl factory.
The National Crime Agency found six of the dead were on the gang's customer lists when the lab in the Morley area of the city was raided on April 30 last year.
But because authorities cannot say for certain the fatal doses were produced by the gang - Levene, Lowther and Childs, will not be charged over any fatalities.
Fentanyl is 100 times stronger than morphine and its more powerful form, carfentanil is 10,000 times stronger again. Just a few small grains can kill.
"They're killers in my eyes"
Gary Edwards was found dead on the bathroom floor of his Leeds flat in November 2017.
His mum Debbie, 56, has since been told by a coroner that the fatal dose which caused the youth worker's death was probably produced at the Morley lab.
The mum-of-two believes the super-strength substance was laced into other drugs he smoked on the night of his death and her son "held a shotgun to his own mouth without realising".
She said: "Those three [men] are killers in my eyes. They knew what they were producing and they still sent it out into the world.
"They might as well have stood on a roof with a machine gun.
"They were hidden in that lock-up secretly killing people. They never saw the lives taken, the ruined lives of people left behind - mothers and children.
"It was all for greed and to make money and to hell with the consequences.
"Their sentences aren't justice, they should have got life for the misery they've inflicted."
Know what this is???!! It is evil.
How one batch was labelled at the lab
Kathy Livick's son Charlton, 33, died after buying carfentanyl from the dark web in March 2017.
An inquest into his death heard a lethal dose had contributed to his heart failure and Kathy believed he had purchased the deadly drug to help self-medicate his anxiety.
Kathy, from Dorset, described the moment she found his body at her home. She said: "It's very hard to process, I couldn't accept that he was dead and so I spent a long time trying to resuscitate him, but I think I knew.
"There was nothing anyone could do for him. I think the drugs had taken their course."
Britain's biggest ever fentanyl lab
The Morley fentanyl lab is believed to have been the biggest Britain has ever seen.
The gang ran the operation via their 'UKBargins' site on the dark web and sold nearly 3,000 packages to 443 customers across the world - around half were in the UK.
Levene and Lowther were in charge of cooking up the fentanyl and Childs was responsible for packaging and posting drugs through the mail.
They knew how dangerous their poison was. Lowther plunged into a coma in February 2017 and was diagnosed with a serious brain injury as a result of exposure to it.
Incredibly, after winning his fight for life, the money-hungry crook returned to working at the lab when he was released from Leeds General Infirmary.
One box of fentanyl found inside the Morley lab was labelled 'Know what this is???!! It is evil'.
Fentanyl was first created in the 1960s as a treatment for cancer pain and a more powerful form, carfentanyl, is used to tranquilise elephants.
The drug - which is commonly cut into street heroin - hit headlines after musician Prince died from an accidental overdose in 2016.
What is fentanyl?
- Fentanyl is a strong opiod painkiller that is used by many patients around the world suffering from chronic conditions.
- It works by stopping pain signals being sent to the nerves in the brain, meaning users do not suffer any discomfort.
- Due to its strength, it is highly controlled by doctors and pharmacists and cannot be prescribed for children.
- It can be administered in patch form or can be injected into the body via a needle or a drip.
- Like most drugs, there is a high risk of overdosing on Fentanyl if you take more than the recommended dose.
- And due to the drug being a powerful opoid, overdosing on it can prove to be fatal.
- Police in cities across the US and Canada are also seeing people become hooked on the drug due to its highly-addictive nature.
- Some even combine the drug with heroin or cocaine to create an even more potent formula, that heightens it effect of feeling relaxed.
It has become popular on the black market because it can be cooked up in a lab and is hugely potent in small quantities.
Just a sprinkling of grains can pack a deadly dose and be mailed around the world in tiny, discreet packages.
This popularity and DIY production methods meant the gang were able to use a local Post Office to ship packages to 12 countries including the US, Australia and Singapore.
When the warehouse was raided in April 2017, respirator masks were found which the men wore to protect themselves while packaging the drugs.
Surge of deaths in the north
The spike in deaths in the north of England in 2017 saw the National Crime Agency pour its efforts into smashing dark web fentanyl dealers.
The Morley lab was by far the biggest result of the operation.
Inside, NCA officers found 677g of pure carfentanyl - enough to make millions of lethal doses.
The rate of fentanyl-related deaths is understood to have dropped by more than half in 2018 having steadily fallen since the raid.
The number of fentanyl-related deaths soared from 58 in 2016 to 75 in 2017.
No official figures have been published but the death rate is understood to have dropped significantly this year in the aftermath of the Leeds raid.
NCA Senior Investigating Officer Graham Roberts said: "Fentanyl and Carfentanyl are extremely potent, the latter having no medical uses for humans.
"Not only is it potentially lethal for those taking it, these drugs pose a serious danger to all those that come into contact with them, be that first responders like law enforcement and medical staff, or in this case, postal staff.
“Childs, Lowther and Levene knew these drugs were life-threatening yet they continued to sell them for their own financial gain.
“The lengthy jail terms handed down to them today are a reflection on their dangerous and careless actions.
“This operation shut down their business, therefore taking out a key international supplier of the chemicals."
Detective Superintendent Pat Twiggs of West Yorkshire Police, added: "While we cannot prove that the specific batches of Fentanyl and Carfentanil they sold from Morley caused deaths directly, both kinds of substance are linked to many fatalities."
Deadly operation 'run as a business'
Levene from Wakefield, and Lowther from Morley, Leeds were both jailed for 16-and-a-half years today. Childs, also from Morley, was caged for 10-and-a-half years.
Prosecuting, Paul Mitchell QC said: "They were making significant money it's plain from what was going on. The money seems to have disseminated rather than to build up their assets.
"Levene and Lowther were jointly responsible for a very sophisticated operation. It was set up as a business and run as a commercial business."
Defending Levene, Michael Gomulka said: "He has been diagnosed with having Asperger's Syndrome. Asperger's brings with this disassociation between one's self and the outside world.
"This is not a hardened criminal. He saw it as a challenge... numbers on a screen without thinking of the human cost."
Sentencing the trio, Judge Mushtaq Khokhar said: "When it comes to Class A drugs the courts are very familar with heroin, crack, crack cocaine and so forth.
"One only has to look what the officers found when they raided the unit. There were specific areas set aside for specific tasks to be performed.
"Given the potency of the drugs in question, it's a different breed to heroin."
Speaking after the sentencing hearing today Greg McKenna of the National Crime Agency said: "Carfentanyl in very, very small doses is lethal. It's such a dangerous drug.
"We've got a customer list this group supplied to and we know within that customer list six people have died.
"We can't link them (their deaths) to this particular crime group but we do know that it's linked to carfentanyl.
"To say this crime group were operating for such a small period of time, that's pretty worrying."
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The number of fentanyl-related deaths soared from 58 in 2016 to 75 in 2017.
No official figures have been published but the death rate is understood to have dropped significantly this year in the aftermath of the Leeds raid.
Of the 75 deaths in England and Wales, 74 were recorded to specific local authority areas by the Office For National Statistics.
