
A Carlisle couple have been jailed for running a black market business which raked in £4million-plus as they shipped illegally obtained and unregulated prescription drugs around the world.
The criminal enterprise involving Christopher Templeman, 38, and 39-year-old Lisa Harper spanned three years, between January 2020 and late 2022.
City of London Police had initially begun a probe after referrals by the USA’s Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies. Officers trained their sights on UK-based suspects trafficking unregulated pharmaceutical drugs to US customers.
Hundreds of kilos of controlled drugs were seized from warehouses. During covert police enquiries, in June 2021, two London-based suspects were followed to Carlisle. They attended Templeman’s Furze Street address, dropping off numerous cardboard boxes.
Templeman was detained, devices were seized and analysis revealed he was a customer of a London organised crime group. No drugs were found but boxes of padded envelopes were recovered.
It emerged Templeman used cryptocurrency to pay London suppliers, telling them in messages: “So easy to pay to India etc this way bro and can’t be traced.”
He was linked to a Carlisle Black Market Traders Facebook group and an Instagram page illegally offering prescription drugs for sale.
In late 2022, Templeman was arrested again and charged. He was recalled to prison to serve the remainder of indeterminate sentence imposed in 2009 having raped a child aged 12.
At that stage, Harper took over the running of the Facebook group for around a fortnight. In one message she stated: “I’m boss man’s partner. I’m stepping in. I’m happy to take your order.”
Officers covertly followed Harper to a 30ft Carlisle rented shipping container.
“On entering it, the police found a business involving the worldwide supply of unregulated pharmaceutical drugs being run from within,” prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told the city’s crown court.
There was a makeshift office, furniture and a gas fire, along with packing supplies and tin foil aimed at defeating customs X-ray equipment.
Prescription medication weighed in at 724kg and, a police expert concluded, could potentially be worth £1.5million-plus.
Much stock originated from genuine India-based pharmaceutical manufacturers — intended for legitimate export but stolen and redirected to the black market.
Police discovered Harper had, over the course of 18 months, made daily visits to three Carlisle post offices with huge numbers of parcels, spending £94,000 on postage. Suspicious staff were told the packages contained pet products.
“She became one post office’s best customer and she commented to the postmaster that she was looking to retire in September 2022, because she had saved up enough money from her pet care business,” said Mr Rogerson. “Such was her regularity as a customer and the volume of her business that the post office had to employ two additional staff just to serve Lisa Harper.”
Evidence gathered from her Trafalgar Street home showed parcels had been sent to Qatar, Australia, France, Canada and Norway; from post offices across north Cumbria and also in Edinburgh.
A pharmacological expert surveyed the seized drugs. Mr Rogerson told the court: “One of his findings was that within the shipping container were enough 10mg diazepam tablets to supply all English NHS prescriptions for that drug for 37 days; and there were sufficient 300mg pregabalin tablets to supply the entire needs of the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire NHS trust areas — with a combined population of 1 million people — for a period of three months.”
Financial enquiries revealed business income of £4.1million-plus during the three years.
Templeman and Harper both admitted conspiracy to supply class A, B and mainly C controlled drugs — many of them painkillers — and possessing criminal property.
Paul Wood, mitigating for Harper, said of the couple: “They may have been in it together. But in my respectful submission there is a difference in the role of the two parties. As far as Miss Harper is concerned, she is less involved.”
Mr Wood spoke of her poor physical and mental health, adding: “She deeply regrets what she has done.”
Judge Michael Fanning called the pair drug dealers. “The reason you did it is simple: massive, massive profit,” he said.
Templeman was given a nine-year prison sentence, and Harper a six-year term.