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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 are also offered GHB which is a powerful sedative often used 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.
It comes amid growing concerns the drugs are being used in sex attacks, with police saying there were 198 reports of drink spiking in September and October across the UK, plus 24 reports of some form of injection.
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. After sending online messages posing as a potential buyer to a US-based site, reporters were offered hundreds of pounds worth of Rohypnol and GHB, without a prescription.
High demand for GHB had caused another dealer to sell out of the drug, with new stocks expected 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.
One said he sold to UK customers every day, and they now made up half of his customers.
The date-rape drugs are sedatives which can be used legally to treat insomnia if 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
