PostNL worker faces 10 years over deadly fake pill webshop

The public prosecution service (OM) is demanding prison sentences of 10 and 6.5 years for two suspects accused of involvement in a counterfeit medicine webshop, whose products appear to have led to the deaths of three people.

The pair are alleged to have worked for an organisation that set up dozens of online sites offering prescription pills like sedatives, painkillers and sleeping aids. The sites were shutdown last week and three people arrested for orchestrating the operation.

People bought the pills online without knowing what was actually in them. Some contained powerful synthetic opioids like nitazenes, which can be far more deadly than fentanyl.

The two suspects were not the main players in the case; one is accused of storing and packing the orders, and the other of using his role in the postal service to ensure deliveries were made.

The PostNL employee is also suspected of importing and dealing in large quantities of cocaine, according to broadcaster NOS.

Both suspects say they had no idea they were helping distribute contaminated pills. A lawyer for one of the defendants described his client as a “glorified assembly-line worker”.