2024-03-02 13:21:59
BBC reporters have tracked down a man in Ukraine who, according to them, is sending poison over the Internet to people in Great Britain who want to commit suicide. According to the BBC, he may have been involved in the deaths of at least 130 people. A man named Leonid Zakutenko advertised his services on a suicide website and admitted to an undercover reporter that he was sending five shipments a week to Britain.
The chemical, which the BBC is not naming for security reasons, can be sold legally in the UK, but only to companies that use it for legitimate purposes. It can be fatal even if ingested in small doses, so it must not be sold to customers without checking what they will use it for.
This is the same substance that led to the arrest of Kenneth Law in Canada last year, who is now facing charges of fourteen murders. The victims are between the ages of 16 and 36, adds The Guardian. But according to authorities, it has contributed to the deaths of more than 100 people in several countries. The Canadian sold the substance through Internet forums where people were looking for instructions on how to commit suicide. Canada punishes anyone who “advises or induces” a person to commit suicide with up to fourteen years in prison.
Zakutenko was originally on the same pages as the arrested Canadian, but then he left them and now people are passing his contact directly to each other.
According to the findings of the British press, the man had been selling poison from Kiev to Britain since at least November 2020. He also offered people various other prescription drugs mentioned in suicide forums.
Zakutenko, from whom the BBC also ordered the material, refused to speak to journalists and also denies the accusations. “It’s a lie,” he said, covering the camera when a reporter confronted him in Kiev outside the post office where the man had gone to send packages. Journalists are sure that at least one of the packages contained poison. Shortly after Zakutenko left the post office building, they received the tracking number of the poison shipment they had ordered from him.
The family of twins Linda and Sara, who died in London last year after being poisoned by a Ukrainian man, called Zakutenko a “despicable and evil person”.
According to their sister Helen Kite, it was easy for Linda to get access to the fabric for a few pounds. She, too, learned about the seller on a well-known suicide forum where people openly discuss the easiest way to kill themselves.
Kite described the forum as “an abomination that, without the intervention of the authorities, feeds on the most vulnerable and causes untold misery and suffering to those left behind”.
It is the inaction of the authorities that bothers her the most and she considers it a “national shame”. The government says a new internet security law that came into force last year should help limit access to these kinds of forums.
Amrita Ahluwalia, an expert in vascular pharmacology at Queen Mary University of London, says the chemical may be linked to more than 130 deaths in the UK since 2019.
“Something needs to be done about it,” emphasized the expert, who tested the blood of more than 180 dead people sent to her by pathologists and police. She found traces of the chemical in 133 of them.
“Because of what it is used for, there needs to be a full investigation into this issue. The substance needs to be regulated so that it is only used for its intended purpose,” she added.