Sebastiano Sorrenti, 35, was jailed for 13 years last week (November 1) after a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation revealed the businessman used his “specialist knowledge” to help criminals produce “thousands of dangerous illegal drugs”.
Sorrenti, of Swindon, was known to his criminal associates as ‘Machine Guy’ due to his provision of “industrial pill presses”, the NCA said.
Read more: ‘Empire of pain’: Drug gang jailed after police seize 1m ‘illicit’ pills
The businessman also sold “large batches” of Class A and C drugs and gave “guidance” on how to make Etizolam pills – a benzodiazepine that treats anxiety and insomnia but is not licensed in the UK.
Sorrenti was arrested at his home in June 2022 by NCA officers and Wiltshire Police where pill press stamps and tablets “containing Etizolam and MDMA” were discovered.
The businessman, however, was first identified by the NCA in connection to a Police Scotland investigation into a drug dealer the year before, in 2021.
Machine Guy
Police Scotland recovered pill presses from an organised crime group in 2020 and text messages revealed that they had been provided by a contact saved under the name ‘Machine Guy’.
These pill presses were used to produce Etizolam, which was a factor in more than 800 drug-related deaths in Scotland, it noted.
NCA officers were then able to attribute ‘Machine Guy’s’ number to Sorrenti, resulting in his arrest.
According to the NCA, over 4,000 messages were exchanged between “Machine Guy” and the leader of the organised crime group, including Sorrenti’s discussion of “evading police detection”.
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As well as his illegal practices, the businessman also ran a company that supplied equipment to legitimate pharmaceutical businesses, the NCA said.
Sorrenti “denied supplying drugs to criminals in Scotland” and claimed his phone number had been “spoofed”.
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He pleaded guilty to all the charges against him last week and was immediately sentenced.
NCA Lead Investigator Rory Duffin said that Sorrenti played “a critical role for a number of organised criminals”.
“The NCA investigation found Sorrenti was providing criminals with professional-standard customer service, supplying equipment, ingredients and instructions to create hundreds of thousands of potentially fatal drugs,” he added.
