Scot Faces US Jail Over Ingredient In Date Rape Drug

A Scot at the centre of a £35m illicit drugs-smuggling operation will be sentenced in the United States this week.

David Calder has arranged a plea bargain with the US authorities to prevent him facing a possible 20-year term in a maximum-security prison.

And now, after agreeing to plead guilty, he is likely to be jailed for around six years.

However, because his offences were “federal”, Calder, who spent years fighting his extradition to the US, will not be eligible for parole.

From his Aberdeen flat, he shipped thousands of litres of GBL (Gamma-Butyrolactone), a component of the date-rape drug GHB, to the US.

He is due to appear in a California court on Wednesday to be sentenced, having informed the prosecution of his decision to plead guilty to drugs and money-laundering offences.

This followed a decision by a Grand Jury to indict him on 377 separate drug and money-laundering charges.

One senior police source said: “He fought all the way not to get sent to America, but funnily enough, when he was on the plane, he realised he was facing 20 years and suddenly had a change of heart, agreeing to take a plea.

“This was a guy who was literally running a cottage industry from his home. Sat there with a computer, taking orders from across America and dispatching the goods out within a matter of hours. Week-in, week-out.”

The collapse of Calder’s empire led to a further 25 people being arrested in America and three chemical laboratories, producing a variety of illicit goods, being shut down.

Calder now also faces losing the suspected £600,000 fortune which he accrued when the authorities later take him to court under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Several cars belonging to Calder have been seized and eight bank accounts in his name frozen.

GBL is legal in the UK but illegal in America and is a component ingredient of the so-called ‘date-rape’ drug GHB.

The inquiry into Calder began after HM Customs intercepted five litres of GBL in August 2003 which was being sent to the US by a company called Natural Clean UK, run by him.

It was addressed to Jamie Norman Greiman, who lived in San Francisco, and after consultation with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (USDEA) it was decided to allow a “controlled delivery” of the consignment.

This meant, when the package arrived at Greiman’s home, he was filmed accepting it from the postman.

During that month, a further eight packages of GBL were dispatched by Calder to various addresses in the US – all of them destined for Greiman.

The authorities there estimate that in just three years Calder shipped more than 3,500 litres of the drug to the US, enough to produce up to seven million doses.

Many bodybuilders, of whom Calder was one, use GBL on its own as a type of steroid, but while it provides the user with a “virtual instantaneous hit”, the damage it causes to the liver can be massive and anyone taking it on a regular basis risks long-term damage.

Following the tip-off by HM Customs, the Americans subsequently requested the specialised help of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency to put Calder under 24-hour surveillance.

This led to him not only being physically watched but his e-mails being intercepted as the inquiry gathered pace on both sides of the Atlantic.

Eventually, a decision was made to arrest him at his home in Belmont Gardens and, in March 2004, police recovered an array of computer equipment as well as around 600 litres of GBL.

Calder was charged with contravention of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and officials from both the USDEA and the US Attorney’s Office were present at Aberdeen Sheriff Court for several of the subsequent hearings.

Calder said that between August 2001 and March 2004 he sent Greiman five-litre or 10-litre shipments of GBL to various addresses in California, New York and New Jersey.

Calder was eventually flown to California earlier this year after a three-year fight to stay in the UK.

It was the former Justice Minister, Cathy Jamieson, who finally signed the papers to send him to California.

The controversial legislation used in the case was the same which recently saw the so-called ‘NatWest Three’ extradited to the United States to face fraud charges following the collapse of the Enron bank.

Greiman too agreed to a similar plea bargain when charged with drug offences and is now serving a 70-month term in prison.