A Canadian man arrested earlier this year, and accused of assisting suicide, is suspected to be linked to the deaths of dozens of people in the UK who died after buying a poisonous substance from him.
Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) could not confirm the chemical was the direct cause of the 88 deaths but has launched a criminal investigation.
Canadian authorities believe he sent 1 200 packages to customers in more than 40 countries, though it is not known how many included the poisonous substance.
British police have been making welfare visits to hundreds of addresses to trace buyers across the country.
Kenneth Law was arrested in Toronto in May, accused of assisting suicide, and appeared briefly in court last Friday, before the hearing was adjourned to 8 September.
The 57-year-old is thought to have run a number of websites selling equipment to assist suicide, reports BBC News.
The NCA, which was co-ordinating the checks, said that 272 people in the UK had been identified as buying from Law over a two-year period, and that 88 of them later died.
BBC article – 88 UK deaths linked to Canada ‘poison seller’ (Open access)
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