Dudley pharmacist jailed over £280,000 black market drugs selling

Forty thousand Class B tablets and 173,000 tablets of Class C, including pain relief Tramadol and sleeping aid Zolpidem, were bought for £5,600. They had a street value of £280,000

A pharmacist illegally supplied thousands of prescription tablets with a street value of £280,000 to the black market, a court heard.

Jaspar Ojela, 56, from West Bromwich, bought painkillers and tranquilisers from drug wholesalers and sold them in 2016.

Ojela admitted supplying drugs and was jailed for two years and four months at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

A judge said it was a "serious breach of duty."

Prosecutors said Ojela purchased the drugs on behalf of two pharmacists in "such large qualities he knew what he was doing was wrong."

Pharmacist Jaspar Ojela has been jailed for two years and four months at Wolverhampton Crown Court for illegally supplying prescription drugs

He did not have a Home Office controlled drug licence or a wholesale distribution licence and should only have prescribed drugs through a lawful prescription, prosecutor Jonathan Barker said.

The hearing was told 40,000 Class B tablets and 173,000 tablets of Class C, including pain relief Tramadol and sleeping aid Zolpidem, were bought for £5,600. It had a street value of £280,000.

James Bruce, defending, said Ojela made just under £2,000 profit from the enterprise, between February and September 2016.

"He was at a low ebb. The pharmacies approached him in that low ebb and he agreed to provide them, and he shouldn't have," he said.

Ojela was the owner of Kates Hill Pharmacy in Dudley until it closed in June 2017.

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In November 2019, he admitted supplying Class B and Class C drugs, as well as selling and supplying prescription only medication not in accordance with prescription given by an appropriate practitioner.

'Dangerous effect'

Judge Dean Kershaw said the dangerous effect of these drugs going on the black market is obvious.

Speaking after the case, Mark Jackson from the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said: "Those who sell medicines illegally are exploiting vulnerable people and have no regard for their health."