By Rebecca Camber
Last updated at 6:35 PM on 10th December 2010
To the outside world, he appeared to be a harmless chemistry geek who spent his days bumbling around his local Labour Party office and surfing social networking sites.
But behind the locked doors of his one bedroom council flat, David Wain, 48, ran a thriving chemical business selling college students and clubbers the lethal party drug GBL.
He also supplied Britain's drugs gangs with cutting agents, enabling them to make staggering profits estimated over 2billion.
Loner: David Wain, 48, implicated in a staggering 2bn illegal drugs trade, was jailed today for 12 years
Today he was jailed for 12 years in a landmark case, which is the first conviction for supplying Gamma-Butyrolactone after it became illegal last year.
It is also the first prosecution in the UK for encouraging or assisting offences under the Serious Crime Act 2007 which was brought in to crackdown on middlemen who facilitate organised criminal gangs.
One partygoer almost died and police believe many others may have fallen seriously ill after buying the Class C liquid drug known as a 'coma in a bottle' from Wain on websites including eBay.
Busted: A Serious Organised Crime Agency worker recovers a packet of chemicals from David Wain's home
Sedatives: Bottles of chloroform branded with David Wain's Sourceachem brand name and packets of chemicals found at his west London home
Drug lair: The outside of David Wain's home in Hayes, Middlesex, where he ran a pharmaceutical wholesale business
From his squalid flat in Hayes, west London, where he lived on benefits, fraudulently claiming 14,000 in housing and council tax benefit, Wain made 500,000 selling the drug, which was a legal party high until December last year when it was banned after a series of deaths.
The industrial chemical is ordinarily used as a paint stripper, an alloy wheel cleaner or to remove graffiti or rust.
But it became a popular party drug because it was legal and cheap.
GBL is virtually tasteless and odourless when diluted in water, but when drunk it produces a high similar to ecstasy and is highly addictive.
Side effects range from muscle spasms to damaged kidneys, liver, stomach and overdoses can result in death.
Wain shipped 100kg of GBL from China for just 63p a kg which he stored in his elderly mother's garage before selling on for 94 a kg.
He sold it in 500ml bottles, even though doctors say that 2ml is enough to put someone in a coma.
When one of his customers fell into a coma after an accidental overdose, his mother begged Wain to stop supplying the drug, but he carried on.
Wain also imported more than 17 tonnes of cutting agents including 7,000 kgs of Benzocaine, a chemical used to make over-the-counter anaesthetic ointments and ear medications.
Investigators from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) believe that the huge quantity of Benzocaine- which is the most common 'bulking agent' for cocaine in the UK- could have brought criminal gangs more than 2billion in profit.
They found a drug dealers list at his home linking him to some Britain's biggest drug gangs in Liverpool, Glasgow, Newport, Cardiff and Dorset who paid him in wads of cash stuffed through his letterbox.
Lucrative: Wain imported huge quantities of chemicals to use as cutting agents for cocaine
Well-stocked: David Wain supplied drug gangs with litres of dangerous chemical agents
Today he was jailed at Reading Crown Court after being convicted of six charges of supplying GBL, encouraging or assisting offences, money laundering and conspiracy to supply a class A drug.
The judge ordered that further charges relating to 14,000 in benefits fraud lie on file.
Judge Ian Grainger told him: 'The scale of the sales in question and to a lesser extent the cash payments received was remarkable.
'The likely street value of the drugs that could be produced using these cutting agents was mind boggling.
'Slightly more than 5,000 kgs of Benzocaine that were intercepted could have, when bulked up with cocaine, a wholesale value of between 232m and 296m and a street value of 432m.
'The possible value of the drugs flowing from what actually got through would have been even more colossal.
'The sales of cutting agents were on a vast scale and were clearly of serious importance to the UK drugs trade.'
He went on: 'GBL is a so-called recreational drug but one which can cause addiction and have catastrophic consequences if even a small overdose is taken.
'You knew perfectly well that the people buying it were planning to drink it. A young man ended up on a life support machine as a result of an unwitting overdose of GBL.
'Despite direct pleas from his mother that you stop selling GBL to her son, you continued to supply him.
'That was perhaps the most despicable part of this whole sorry saga.
'The drugs, which your activities were multiplying, cause untold misery and despair. They destroy lives and encourage all manner of crime.'
INS News Agency Ltd..10/12/2010 Cutting agents: A stockpile of chemicals outside garage David Wain used for his drug business See copy INS
The judge added: 'You are an intelligent man with a talent and enthusiasm for chemistry. Rather than the positive uses that might have flowed from that, it has regrettably led you into very serious crime.'
SOCA first arrested Wain in August 2008 when they suspected he was importing huge quantities of chemicals like phenacetin, lidocaine, procaine, paracetamol and benzocaine, as cutting and bulking agents for cocaine.
While on bail, Wain switched from his cutting agent business to supplying GBL.
When it became a Class C drug in December 2009, Wain raised his prices from 30 to 47 a bottle and he became busier than ever, using different shipping routes to evade attention.
Potent poisons: A SOCA photo shows a shed displaying a 'Toxic' sign for chemicals at David Wain's home
He also sourced litres of chloroform for dealers and even supplied them with a do it yourself website to make crystal meth.
Meanwhile, he taunted SOCA on his online blog.
But he was finally locked up in May this year for posting racist verbal attacks and threatening posts on social networking sites.
When police arrived at his home in Hayes they found a machete hanging on the back of the front door and an axe by his bed.
Lonely and depressed, the oddball started his chemical business, Sourceachem, because he was bored, investigators believe.
The qualified accountant worked part-time as a volunteer for his local Labour MP, John McDonnell and he acted as a bookkeeper for the Royal British Legion.
Oddball: An axe found at David Wain's bedside after his arrest
He also spent hours online, posting petitions to Downing Street and surfing social networking sites looking for penpal.
On social networking sites, he described himself as 'a bit lonely and shy in nature', saying his favourite TV programmes were Last of the Summer Wine, the Politics Show, and the X Files.
He wrote: 'I'm single, have no children and live in Hayes, Middlesex (in West London). I run a small website supplying fine quality chemicals.
'You are most welcome to write to me and I promise you a reply .
'I am rather shy as person especially with girls , so please make allowances (limited experience). David.'
Yesterday Brendan Kelly, QC, defending said: 'He is a loner with a monotonous and lonely life and what this provided him with was a pastime, a way of spending his days and, incidentally, some form of contact with the outside world.
'He's a highly unusual personality.'
Outside court, Trevor Symes, from SOCA, said: 'David Wain helped the illegal drugs trade make hundreds of millions of pounds of profit.
'There is no doubt that the quantity of cutting agents he was dealing would have had an impact on the availability and purity of cocaine on the streets of the UK and brought the price down to a level which made it accessible to more users.
'He showed a complete lack of conscience about the harm he caused, and the harm he enabled others to cause through his criminal business.'
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