A former pharmacy manager has been jailed for almost two-and-a-half years after owning up to selling codeine and other medicines to a drug dealer.

Shamil Amin, 34, who managed a pharmacy in Croydon and another in Horsham, first sold pharmaceuticals, predominantly codeine, to 26-year-old Daniel Tillyard “through a chain of supply,” said Surrey Police in a statement yesterday.

Mr Tillyard used the products to create a syrup-based opioid drink named lean. The drink is typically made from mixing substances such as codeine and promethazine, and is highly addictive. It is classified as a class A drug when it contains morphine and a class B drug when codeine is used.

In 2020, Mr Amin began dealing directly with Mr Tillyard, who wished to “turn his lean production into a fully-fledged business” and create 5,000 bottles of the drug amounting to a street value of around £250,000, the police said. 

Mr Tillyard’s products carried a higher than usual risk of complications such as respiratory issues, organ damage or death because he sometimes substituted morphine for codeine as the base ingredient.

Mr Amin and Mr Tillyard were arrested in May 2021 after text messages between them were unearthed by detectives carrying out a separate investigation into drug supply in Surrey.

Mr Amin was sentenced to two years and five months in prison at Guildford Crown Court on Tueday (May 17) after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply class A and class B drugs.

Mr Tillyard was sentenced to six years and nine months after pleading guilty to six counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs, four counts of conspiracy to supply class B drugs and two counts of conspiracy to supply class C drugs.

Detective Constable Philip Potter, who investigated the case, said: “This was a large-scale plot by Tillyard, who aspired to be a big-time drug dealer in London.

“The fact that he is now behind bars mean that his aspiration has not become a reality, Thanks to the hard work of officers and detectives, Tillyard’s plot to produce and supply lean, facilitated by Amin, has been stopped in its tracks.

“Drug dealing blights communities and exploits the vulnerable, which is why we work tirelessly to stop it from taking place on the streets of Surrey.”