A 21-year-old student has died after she started taking toxic slimming pills that she bought online.
Eloise Parry, from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, bought the slimming pills containing the poisonous substance dinitrophenol (DNP) from 32-year-old Bernard Rebelo.
DNP was first used to manufacture bombs in the First World War.
Ms. Parry collapsed and suffered a heart attack after taking eight capsules.
Rebelo, from Gosport, Hampshire, bought the pills from a chemical factory in China and sold them online to the people around the world.
Rebelo tricked UK customs by mislabelling packages of the pills he bought from China as turmeric.
Rebelo appeared in court for a retrial on the manslaughter charge and the lawyer told that the 21-year-old victim had an eating disorder and had been diagnosed with bulimic.
She started buying the pills from Rebelo which contained DNP which was first used to make bombs in the First World War.
However, in 1930, it started using to promote weight loss ‘as it stimulates human metabolism and eats away calories consumed.
After taking the eight pills, Ms. Parry collapsed and suffered a heart attack and died.
Richard Barraclough, QC, prosecuting, said: “The defendant bought the DNP which is a yellow powder from an industrial chemical factory in China. It was supplied in drums.”
Rebelo put the yellow powder that he bought from an industrial chemical factory in China into capsules and started selling them as slimming pills.
Richard Barraclough, QC, said: “He operated out of a flat in Harrow, London, where he put the powder into capsules and then sold it on the internet.”
He said that Rebelo knew it was dangerous as one of his associates had consumed DNP and had suffered some of its toxic effects. Still, he was selling the toxic slimming pills.
However, Rebelo has denied manslaughter but the trial continues.
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