Gang leader jailed for back-garden fake medicines business

A man who co-ordinated a multi-million-pound fake medicines operation, including counterfeit versions of the powerful anti-anxiety pill Xanax, has today (Wednesday 27 March 2025) been jailed for eight years.

Brian Pitts – 30 of Bilston – pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to conspiracy to supply Class C controlled drugs; breaching a trade mark for a medication, exporting class C controlled drugs; and laundering the proceeds of crime.

He was sentenced along with nine other defendants at Wolverhampton Crown Court. Brian Pitts was also issued with a Serious Crime Prevention Order by the court which will prohibit him from obtaining the equipment and substances to make pills and allow law enforcement to more readily monitor his activity with financial accounts and on the internet.

The group – many of whom were from the same extended family - operated from a base in the Black Country manufacturing in make-shift pill production factories in garages and garden sheds, using industrial pill presses and active ingredients imported from China.
 
Brian Pitts – known online as Milkman - and father-in-law Lee Lloyd were the main players, co-ordinating the production and sales of counterfeit tablets online from their base in Thailand. Lloyd’s partner Katie Harlow was also involved in laundering the criminal profits and was sentenced to two years and one month imprisonment. It is estimated that more than £4 million worth of drugs were sold to customers on the Dark Web, primarily the market in the USA, using Bitcoin to receive payment.
 
The wider group included Mark Bailey and Deborah Bellingham, whose addresses in Wolverhampton and Tipton were used as manufacturing sites. The rest of the group - Kyle Smith, Scott Tonkinson, Anthony Pitts, Jordan Pitts and Bladen Roper – assisted with the running of the business.

Packages of tablets were intercepted both in the UK and US, which involved close working with US authorities. The packages were found to contain counterfeit Xanax and had return addresses related to the defendants - one intercepted parcel had Brian Pitt’s fingerprints on packaging on the inside.

Phone content showed accounts used by Brian Pitts, Harlow and Lloyd had control of the Dark Web marketplaces and were linked to Bitcoin and other crypto assets used to buy counterfeit Xanax.
 
Brian Pitts, Harlow and Lloyd were all arrested when they returned from Thailand in August 2019 with designer clothes and Rolex watches in their luggage.

Jonathan Kelleher from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “This was a case of fake medicines being produced on an industrial scale, with significant potential harm to the public.

“These drugs should only be prescribed by a doctor and anyone buying them on the Dark Web, produced in a back-garden shed, has no clue what they are taking. Brian Pitts and his associates were not concerned with these dangers and only saw a money-making opportunity.

“The CPS worked closely with the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit, including experts in cyber-crime given that much of this offending took place online, to prosecute these organised criminals and protect the public from this harmful trade.”
 
The CPS Proceeds of Crime Division are pursuing confiscation proceedings against the defendants to remove any available criminal benefit from this enterprise.