Steroid dealer jailed for selling toxic diet pills that killed Shrewsbury student Eloise Parry
A man convicted for selling a toxic chemical as a “slimming aid” which led to the death of a Shrewsbury student was today sentenced to seven years in prison.
Bernard Rebelo, 30, of Gosport, Hampshire, put the dangerous pesticide into capsules, then marketed and sold the poison online as a “fat burner” and “slimming aid”.
Shrewsbury student Eloise Parry, 21, a bulimia sufferer, was one of the people who bought the toxic chemical from Rebelo’s websites.
She died at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital on 12 April 2015 after taking eight of the DNP capsules.
Despite knowing about Eloise Parry’s death, Bernard Rebelo continued selling his product online, making further efforts to disguise the true purpose by including confusing disclaimers and labels on his websites and packaging.
Rebelo was convicted on Wednesday at Inner London Crown Court of manslaughter and supplying an unsafe food supplement.
It was a raid by Harrow Council in February 2016 of 34a Herga Court, Sudbury Hill, which uncovered Bernard Rebelo’s workshop. He was using the flat to prepare DNP powder into capsules, then package and label them to sell to consumers worldwide through various websites, including one called “Dr Muscle Pharmaceuticals” – the same as Bernard Rebelo’s business name. The labels were designed to evade customs in the USA and Australia, with some packets falsely labelled as ‘plant pigment dye’.
Rebelo sold the capsules over a period of two years with other products designed to help with weight loss, body building or body sculpting. During this time the websites had images of muscled and toned male and female figures, recommended dosing information and links to DNP-related threads on bodybuilding forums.
The raid followed a joint investigation with Ealing Council and the Metropolitan Police. Led to his flat by a trail of evidence from Eloise Parry’s purchase history, environmental health officers from Harrow Council uncovered a vast amount of evidence, including a full 25 kg drum of DNP powder – enough to make 200,000 deadly capsules. The raid also found an empty drum, also imported from China; thousands of home-made DNP capsules and capsules waiting to be filled; the equipment that made the powder into capsules; and the paraphernalia to package and ship items to customers around the world.
Additionally, electronic equipment was seized, which connected Bernard Rebelo to the online selling of his products including the design of websites such as drmusclepharmaceuticals.com; emails and text messages with customers; evidence of postings on internet forums; evidence of thousands of past orders from all over the globe; and links to his bank accounts which received the proceeds of the sales.
Cllr Graham Henson, leader of Harrow Council, said:
“We brought this case because we were the last chance for justice for the family of a vulnerable young woman, who was poisoned by the vile toxins that this criminal knowingly peddled. Harrow Council had the best chance in years to bring those responsible to justice and help prevent the same fate befalling another innocent victim in the future. We simply had to take that chance.
“We know that other people have died from taking this extremely toxic chemical for weight loss, not just Eloise Parry. I hope this conviction will stop anyone else from selling DNP in this way. Rebelo thought he could hide online; hide from justice behind obscure laws. But he was wrong – we found him, we brought him here and now we’ve convicted him.
“And I hope we have raised awareness of the dangers of DNP, so people stop taking it. It is not something that can make you lose weight. It is a powerful poison, a pesticide that kills at very low doses. Anyone who tells you otherwise, like Rebelo, is lying to you.”
Harrow Council worked on the case with support from West Mercia Police and the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) National Food Crime Unit.
