Jail for bodybuilder caught flogging ‘lethal’ fat-burning pills

A bodybuilder has been jailed for more than three years after he was caught selling black-market fat-burning pills lethal to humans.

Jamie George, a 32-year-old gym owner from Denny, Scotland, is believed to have manufactured up to 10,000 pills a month containing dinitrophenol, or DNP, to sell across the world.

He was jailed for culpably and recklessly supplying a diet pill which can be lethal to humans, a charge that he previously admitted to.

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The drug has been at the heart of a recent trend which sees bodybuilders pumping themselves full of the stuff, which comes in bright-yellow powder form, in an effort to reduce body fat.

This is despite the fact that it is a highly toxic industrial chemical, used in the manufacture of explosives, insecticide, and in photographic developing, and has been linked to 33 Brit deaths, with two of those being in Scotland, according to Food Standards Scotland.

Prosecutors told Stirling Crown Court during George’s trial that users are at high risk of kidney failure, liver failure, coma, convulsions, and cardiac arrest,the BBC reports.

Despite knowing this, a judge found that he had an illicit business which saw him ship thousands of pills across the world to customers in Asia, Australia and the USA, as well as across Scotland.

Officers from Food Standards Scotland raided his home in 2018 after receiving a tip-off.

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They found 5kg of DNP, as well as manufacturing equipment including disposable gloves, a capsule filling machine capable of turning out 100 pills at a time, 10,000 empty capsule shells, and almost £1,500 in cash.

On top of this, an officer told the court: “The floor, walls and contents of the garden shed were all heavily contaminated and stained with a yellow powder."

Ron McNaughton, head of the Scottish Food Crime and Incident Unit, said: “Jamie George's sentencing today sends a clear message that there are consequences for those individuals who are prepared to put peoples’ lives at risk in order to profit financially from the supply of DNP.

“It also highlights the importance of the continuous collaborative work being undertaken by the SFCIU, as well as local authorities such as Falkirk Council, and Police Scotland to keep people safe.”

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