Dark Web Dealer Jailed for Selling Deadly Diet Pills

A man who used the dark web to sell dangerous ‘diet pills’ made from industrial chemicals has been sentenced to three years in prison. Kyle Enos, 33, bought the poisonous substance 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) from China and manufactured fake diet tablets in his bedroom, selling them to customers across the UK and as far as Hawaii and Australia. ⚖️

Cardiff Crown Court heard that Enos disguised the deadly pills as harmless vitamin tablets and advertised them on his own website, taking payments in cryptocurrency. The industrial chemical DNP is banned for human consumption in the UK and can cause death along with serious physical side-effects.

The court was told that Enos had only been out of prison for months after serving eight years for supplying fentanyl when he began this latest criminal enterprise. His previous conviction in 2018 involved selling the Class A drug under the pseudonym “sovietbear” – police found four people in his contacts database had died, though it couldn’t be proven the deaths were linked to his fentanyl supply.

Officers from Tarian, the regional organised crime unit for southern Wales, raided his home in July last year and discovered more than two kilos of DNP along with a pill press. Enos was already subject to a serious crime prevention order that banned him from selling products online and accessing the dark web.

Detective Constable Kieran Morris of Tarian said: “The swift arrest of Enos and the removal of these poisonous diet pills from the open market was our utmost priority. Enos was supplying the pills with no safety precautions in place, and no advice on dosages. This could have led to buyers becoming extremely ill or even dying.”

Alison Abbott from the National Crime Agency’s prisons and lifetime management unit said crime prevention orders were a “powerful tool” and warned: “The case of Enos should serve as a warning to others that the agency would actively monitor all those who are subject to such orders when they are in the community.” 💊

Enos, formerly of Newport but now of Station Road, Maesteg, pleaded guilty to multiple charges including importing regulated substances without licence and breaching his serious crime prevention order. He will serve up to half his sentence in custody before being released on licence.