Date rape drugs – including those used by one of the country’s most prolific sex attackers – are being openly sold online and shipped to the UK by ‘express delivery’, a Mail investigation has found.
Internet pharmacists said Britain had become one of its ‘top destinations’ for sales of Rohypnol and GHB, which are illegal in the UK without a prescription.
Undercover reporters were offered them prescription-free by four separate dealers, who promised ‘secure’ delivery and a ‘100 per cent success rate’ to anywhere in the UK in as little as 24 hours.
Online drug dealers are offering date rape drugs such as Rohypnol to Britons for as little as £184 for 100 pills
Britons can also be offered GHB. This powerful sedative is used often in date rapes.
One said they vacuum-packed the banned substances ‘to ensure no one can detect what’s inside’ before putting them in ‘padded envelopes with heat-sealed sachets’ to avoid detection.
This comes as there are growing fears that the drug is being used for sex attacks. Police said they received 198 reports in the UK of drink-spiking, and 24 injection reports.
Home Secretary Priti Patel announced in March that she would crack down on GHB and related substances after warning they had been used in some ‘truly sickening crimes’, including murder, sexual assault and robbery.
But with a simple Google search, the Mail found a string of websites openly selling the drugs, with one showcasing a ‘hot products’ page where other restricted substances including MDMA and Valium were also available to buy. Reporters were offered Rohypnol or GHB in the hundreds, and they did not need a prescription.
GHB was in high demand and another dealer sold out. Stocks will be replenished next month.
Powdered GHB was available from $40 (£30) a gram, while the sellers offered 100 pills of Rohypnol for $250 (£184). The dealers, who only accepted payment in the untraceable cryptocurrency Bitcoin, boasted about speedy delivery, with one claiming to have a ‘very fast and easy’ ordering process.
He said that he used to sell daily to UK customers, making them half his customer base.
Date-rape drugs, also known as sedatives, can be legally used for insomnia treatment if they are prescribed by doctors. Criminals caught trying to distribute Rohypnol in the US can face up to life in prison and a maximum fine of £3 million.
But one said: ‘All orders are packaged very discreetly in padded envelopes with heated sealed sachets inside and no mention of product names or the website name on the outside of the package.
‘The UK is one of our top destinations for delivery from the US.’
Another said: ‘Four days maximum for overnight delivery so you receive your package ASAP. We first of all do vacuum packaging to ensure no one can detect what’s inside. We have a 100 per cent successful delivery rate to UK.’
Reynhard Sinaga, the UK’s most prolific rapist, was jailed in January 2020 for drugging and raping 48 men after lacing their drinks with GHB.
Sinaga, who is thought to have assaulted at least195 men, was found guilty of drugging and filming him sexually abusing his victims.
Student was imprisoned for 60+ years. He must also serve at least 30 years to be eligible for parole.
Serial killer Stephen Port was branded ‘wicked and monstrous’ by a judge after luring four young men back to his flat and poisoning them with lethal doses of GHB. 2016 saw him sentenced to life in prison.
John Worboys was a Black Cab rapist who pumped women with alcohol with sedatives. He then attacked them from his hackney carriage.
It is thought that he attacked over 100 women in his lifetime before being sentenced to prison in 2009.
Miss Patel stated in March she was going to tighten GHB restrictions and move related substances from class C into class B. That would result in harsher punishments for illicit possession. She pledged to do ‘everything in my power’ to protect people from harm from the drugs.
A criminal can be sentenced to up 14 years imprisonment for the production and supply of class C drug. Those caught possessing Rohypnol – known as ‘Roofies’ – without a prescription face two years in jail.
Another indication that illegal drugs are easily accessible online is the investigation. The Mail reported last week that hundreds of dealers in illegal drugs were selling marijuana to teens via social media.
Following a club attack I was treated just like any other drunk student.
A student says she needed 20 minutes of CPR after being ‘spiked’ in a nightclub.
But Rhiannon Smith, 19, said police and medical staff treated her as ‘just another drunk student’ and failed to run tests to look for anything in her system.
The undergraduate – who is studying for a policing degree – says she drank three single vodka Red Bulls during a night out. Her hearing began to blur and she felt the room spin.
She said when her friends took her home, her pulse had ‘stopped’ so they dialled 999 and were told to perform life-saving chest compressions for 20 minutes until an ambulance arrived.
Rhiannon Smith, 19, said police and medical staff treated her as ‘just another drunk student’ and failed to run tests to look for anything in her system after she was rushed to hospital following being spiked in a Lancashire nightclub
Last month’s alleged spiking took place during a night out at Alpine Club Lodge in Ormskirk, Lancashire. The Edge Hill University student said when she awoke at Southport and Formby District General Hospital, nurses told her she’d had too much to drink and they were unable to test if she’d been ‘spiked’.
‘I feel like they discriminated against me as just another uni student that drank too much, but I know I was spiked,’ she added. She praised the venue, saying staff had checked CCTV for anything suspicious, but questioned why police hadn’t taken samples.
Lancashire Police said it took reports of spiking ‘extremely seriously’ and had spoken to Miss Smith and ‘looked at all possible lines of inquiry’.
Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust said she had been ‘treated in line with her medical condition on arrival at A&E’. The Alpine Club Lodge said its measures to avoid spiking included free cup covers and a ‘drugs dog’ to ‘put customers’ minds at ease’.