Online steroid dealer who sold toxic slimming pills to bulimic student is jailed for seven years

An online steroid dealer who sold toxic ‘Russian Roulette’ slimming pills to a bulimic student was jailed for seven years today.

Eloise Parry, 21, bought pills containing lethal DNP from Bernard Rebelo, 32, before collapsing dead on 12 April 2015.

DNP was first used to manufacture explosives in the First World War and is not designed for human consumption.

Taking the drug has been compared on social media to ‘playing Russian Roulette’ and it has killed 16 people but is popular among dieters for its ‘fat-burning’ qualities.

Ms Parry from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, who was ‘vulnerable and deeply troubled’ suffered a fatal heart attack after taking eight capsules advertised by Rebelo on online forums such as Reddit.

Rebelo, the husband of an NHS worker, imported the drug from China and tricked UK customs by mislabelling packages as turmeric.

He continued to sell the deadly drug to customers even after discovering Ms Parry had died and ‘opportunistically’ targeted vulnerable people online.

Rebelo sparked an Interpol Orange Warning when a second victim was hospitalised after buying the substance from him but carried on dealing.

He demanded online payment via the crypto-currency Bitcoin and managed to resurrect his websites after they were repeatedly taken down by the FSA and Interpol.

He was importing the chemical for £340 for a 24 kilo drum and repackaging it in capsules to make a profit of £200,000 per drum.

It enabled him to live a life of luxury and he posed for pictures behind the wheel of a his Porsche and Corvette sports cars wearing one of his collection of Rolex watches.

He admitted selling Ms Parry the pills but said a warning on his website indicated it was not for human consumption – even though the drug was sold in capsule form.

Rebelo spent 10 months in custody after being sentenced to seven years in June 2018 when he was convicted of manslaughter and placing unfit food on the market at Inner London Crown Court.

Jurors were told Rebelo’s latest trial followed a ruling by the Court of Appeal that he should be retried for manslaughter.

Mother Fiona Parry said in part of a statement read to the court today: ‘Eloise had many problems in her life but I always hoped they would be sorted,’ she said.

‘In the latter part of her life there were positive signs that things were getting better. She was working towards achieving her goals.

‘She had plans for the future including travelling and seeing the world, not just a career.’ 

Following the sentence, she said: ‘It all feels unreal. It’s still never a situation you want to find yourself in. It’s overwhelming. If I really stop to think about it, I don’t function.’ 

She said the person that would be most affected was her other daughter Rebecca, who had just turned 17 when her sister died.

She said: ‘At the end of the day, the sentence doesn’t bring Eloise back. She doesn’t get another chance, and as a family we have to go away and live with that. There hasn’t just been one victim, to what he [Rebelo] has done. Although I don’t know who they are, there must be many more families.’

Mrs Parry added that she wished that people would ‘just remember the best’ of her daughter. She said: ‘I hope they remember the good times, the smiles and the joy she brought to others.’

John Burton QC, defending, said Rebelo had not compounded his guilt by lying under oath as he refused to give evidence during the second trial.

The barrister said: ‘He has not [gone] into a witness box and given false evidence.  The only way you can glean anything from his background and character comes from reality in the character references. They say a lot for him.

‘They give you the man rather than the convicted criminal. He has learned from this experience. He was a young man, possibly a naive man. The character references show a man who dotes on his family particularly his three-year-old child.

‘His wife works for the NHS and sleeps during the day so he is effectively the primary carer.’

Rebelo sat expressionless in the dock and stared straight ahead as Mrs Justice Whipple told him the time he had already served in custody would not count towards his sentence today. 

Sentencing Rebelo, Mrs Justice Whipple said that he had shown a ‘blatant disregard for risk of death’ by selling the substance that was ‘not fit for human consumption’.

She said: ‘DNP is an extremely toxic substance. It is a yellow powder which was originally used in making munitions in World War One.

‘It was banned in the USA in 1938, because it was dangerous and unsafe and not fit for human consumption. DNP has a market in the UK amongst bodybuilders and those that want to lose weight.

‘There is no safe dosage for DNP: even small amounts can have devastating consequences. In consequence, DNP has a staggeringly high mortality rate.’

The judge said she would have imposed a harsher jail term on Rebelo were she not limited by the sentencing after the first trial, adding a second victim had been hospitalised after buying the drug from him, leading Interpol to issue an Orange Warning in August 2015.  

Rebelo started his business in 2012 initially selling steroids, before importing DNP as a yellow powder from China. It had been banned in the 1930s after a series of deaths but was produced again after the internet allowed buyers to purchase the drug online anonymously.

The capsules were filled with powder in his Harrow flat, where the process stained the carpets yellow. The two websites to shift the pills used Bitcoin because it was an ‘anonymous and safe method’.

A single DNP pill can be fatal and the chemical causes vomiting, restlessness, dizziness and an irregular heartbeat. Consuming lower amounts over longer periods could lead to cataracts and skin lesions and shut down the impact on the heart, blood and nervous system.

Prosecutor Richard Barraclough, QC, told the court: ‘DNP was first used as a base material for munitions in the First World War. It was then used in the 1930s to promote weight loss because it was found to stimulate the human metabolism and eat away calories consumed.

‘Despite its toxicity, it has also been used as a ‘fat burning’ and weight reducing product. It caused a number of deaths and was banned in the USA. With the advent of the internet it was again sold worldwide with, in certain cases, devastating consequence.

‘The defendant bought the DNP which is a yellow powder from an industrial chemical factory in China. It was supplied in drums.

‘He operated out of a flat in Harrow, where he put the powder into capsules and then sold it on the internet. The profits from the undertaking were considerable. The defendant had started his operation with the sale of steroids to bodybuilders and then moved into the DNP market.’  

He added: ‘His website was closed down on occasion but he was able to resurrect it. 

‘He knew it was dangerous not only because one of his associates had consumed DNP and had suffered some of its toxic effects which in his case were not fatal but because it was well known that any number of authorities and organisations were warning against the dangers of consuming the chemical.’ 

Professor Simon Thomas, a consultant physician, had told the court using DNP was known as ‘Russian Roulette’ because the user could either lose weight – or die.

He said: ‘There is uncertainty whether a particular dose will give the desired effects, or in fact produce life threatening and fatal effects,’ he told the court. I think that is where the phrase comes from.

‘DNP causes some degree of weight reduction and loss of fat, but that is at the expense or risk to the cells of the body and the organs. The dose required to produce these more severe symptoms is relatively low and not much higher than the dosage required to secure weight loss.’

Eloise messaged her best friend Lydia-Jane Rogers on 10 March after overdosing on the capsules just a month before her death.

The text read: ‘I f***ed up. A and E. DNP overdose. Feels so f***ing stupid. I knew I could not control my eating disorder well enough to take them safely. I knew it!’ 

Her friend was about to board a plane to Cyprus when she received a message reading: ‘I f***ed up big time. Binged/purged all night long and took 4 at 4am. Took another 4 when I woke.. Started vomiting. In a and e.

‘I think I’m going to die Lydia. No one is known to survive if they vomit because of DNP. I love you so much. I’m so sorry if I leave you behind. Promise me you will prove [to] everyone how amazing you are. I love you’.

By the time Ms Rogers tried to call back when she landed the victim was dead.

Mr Barraclough said: ‘She tried to contact Eloise when she landed at 17.05 without any success. During the morning the doctors consulted the National Poison Unit Information Service.

‘She collapsed and was taken to resuscitation at around 12.30 and was noted to be sweating profusely and agitated. At around 13.00, Eloise had become ‘agitated, shouting out, rolling around’ and was noted to be ‘frothing at the mouth’.’

Rebelo, of Harrow, denied but was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter and was jailed for seven years.

His then partner Mary Roberts, 34, was cleared of money laundering at the first trial after she transferred £20,000 on his behalf in February 2016. She claimed she thought the money came from his motorcycle parts business.

She was earlier cleared of manslaughter at the end of the prosecution case due to insufficient evidence.