Post offices in Keswick and Penrith were used as a Cumbrian couple ran a £4.1m black market business by mailing illegally obtained prescription drugs around the world.
The colossal criminal enterprise involving Christopher Templeman, 38, and 39-year-old Lisa Harper spanned three years, between January, 2020, and late 2022.
Templeman sourced unregulated prescription drugs from a London-based crime gang. These were then posted from Carlisle, Penrith, Keswick and even Edinburgh to customers in countries including Qatar, Australia, France, Canada and Norway.
Harper mailed huge numbers of parcels during lengthy daily visits to post offices, splashing out £94,000 on postage in two years and falsely telling suspicious staff the contents were pet care products.
Police covertly followed Harper to a rented storage shipping container in Carlisle which contained prescription medication weighing in at 724kg and potentially worth up to £1.5million.
Templeman, previously of Furze Street, and Harper, of Trafalgar Street, both Carlisle, admitted conspiracy to supply class A, B and mainly C controlled drugs – many of them painkillers – and possessing criminal property.
Handing down his punishment at Carlisle Crown Court on Thursday, Judge Michael Fanning said the pair were “drug dealers”. “The reason you did it is simple: massive, massive profit,” said the judge. He gave Templeman a nine-year prison sentence. Harper received a six-year jail term.
