Four jailed over ecstasy lab at seafront flat

From left: Sabastian Kaminski, Marcin Glowacki, Daniel Nartowicz and Maciej Kupiec

Four men have been jailed for more than 20 years for making and selling ecstasy tablets from a seafront holiday let.

The makeshift drugs lab on Sandside, Scarborough, was used to turn high-purity MDMA into tens of thousands of ecstasy tablets that were sold as far away as London.

The group also produced mephedrone, chloromethcathinone and caffeine pills, which were made to look like ecstasy.

North Yorkshire Police seized 70,000 pills, but just 2,000 were found to have any trace of MDMA.

'Lives at risk'

Police said the substitute ingredients increased the risk of psychological and cardiovascular side effects.

Det Con Laurence Longworth of North Yorkshire Police’s Organised Crime Unit said: “This group put people’s lives at risk by contaminating drugs with substances that increase the risk of harm.

“They did this for their own financial benefit and without the knowledge of those who would go on to use them. Thankfully the enterprise has now been dismantled and those responsible have been sentenced appropriately.”

Police also found drug-testing kits, a cement mixer, pill press, fridge, moulds, coloured powders, scales, storage and packaging facilities at the apartment.

Sabastian Kaminski, 45, from Scarborough, Marcin Glowacki, 33, also from Scarborough, Maciej Kupiec, 31, from Hull, and Daniel Nartowicz, 34, from Melton Dorian, East Midlands, were sentenced at York Crown Court on 5 July.

The group pleaded guilty to a total of 16 drug-related offences.

North Yorkshire Police said “ringleader” Kaminski owned the building on Scarborough’s South Bay and ran the lab. He was sentenced to eight years and 10 months.

“Accomplice” Glowacki organised the purchase of raw materials and the bulk sale of the drugs across the country. He was sentenced to six years and two months.

Nartowicz and Kupiec transported the drugs. They were sentenced to three years and one month, and two years and seven months respectively.