Four Manchester University students jailed for selling drugs worth hundreds of thousands of pound over dark web

Group used Silk Road online marketplace after being inspired by the Breaking Bad TV show

Students sent almost 17kg of liquid ecstasy, equivalent to 240,000 tablets, through the post to buyers (US Customs/Newsmakers)

A group of University of Manchester students have been jailed for trafficking drugs worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on the dark web.

Basil Assaf, 26, Elliott Hyams, 26, James Roden, 25, and Jaikishen Patel, 26, ran the operation which imported, exported and supplied ecstasy, LSD and ketamine.

The students, all from London, immersed themselves in the recreational drugs scene in their first year at the University of Manchester.

Led by Assaf and inspired by the TV series Breaking Bad, they began selling drugs on the Silk Road online marketplace from May 2011.

Their operation continued until the FBI brought down the illicit website in October 2013 and seized its servers.

Hidden on the dark web, the Silk Road was launched in February 2011 and advertised banned drugs and other illegal goods. Transactions were conducted using the bitcoin cryptocurrency.

Before it was shut down, the students sent almost 17kg of liquid ecstasy, the equivalent to 240,000 tablets, through the post to buyers, along with more than 1.2kg of 2CB, a synthetic drug that mimics ecstasy and more than 1.4kg of ketamine.

They also sent LSD both in small bottles and in individual doses on paper, stamps and sweets.

Sales on the Silk Road website were valued at US $1.14m (£812,000) but some drugs were supplied in person for cash and other online payment systems were used to evade Silk Road’s commission fees.

The defendants enjoyed a lifestyle “far above that of typical students”, taking holidays to Jamaica and the Bahamas, prosecutors told Manchester Crown Court.

FBI officials uncovered the trafficking ring as part of its investigations and informed the National Crime Agency who went on to raid Assaf and Roden’s flat near the university and discovered a “drug dealing factory”.

Judge Michael Leeming sentenced ringleader Assaf to 15 years and three months and jailed Hyams for 11 years and three months. Roden was sentenced to 12 years and Patel 11 years and two months.

The defendants pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to conspiracy to importing, exporting and supplying controlled drugs.

Joshua Morgan, 28, was jailed for seven years and two months after admitting assisting the offenders in what described as an “important role” in packing the drugs for dispatch by mail.

“The message must go out that those who engage in these sort of activities, whether on the dark web or on more open view, with high levels of profits or some other advantage in mind can expect to receive substantial prison sentences," Judge Leeming told the defendants as he sentenced them.

“You operated a one-stop shop, cutting out the middle man. You all knew the score and the scale of what was going on.”

He added: “Drugs are a blight on our society. Misery and degradation is the typical result. As intelligent young men you will all each appreciate that that misery is caused and certainly contributed to by people like you.”

He noted the drugs involved were dangerous and potentially fatal and that the death rate from ecstasy was increasing.

Ian Glover, senior operations manager at the National Crime Agency, said: “These five men were interested only in making money. They had no regard whatsoever for the harm these drugs could do to their users.

“The FBI’s excellent work shut the site down in 2013 in a globally significant operation and information they shared with us enabled us to identify, arrest and successfully build this case.

“Sites on the dark net represent a new variation on old crimes and are dealt with accordingly.”