80-year-old lottery winner sentenced for bankrolling $400M drug empire from cottage with son

John Eric Spiby, an 80-year-old man who won the National Lottery in 2010, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in England for running a $400 million drug empire from his cottage with his son and two accomplices. Between November 2021 and May 2022, Spiby equipped his cottage with an industrial-scale tablet manufacturing setup, producing counterfeit diazepam tablets laced with etizolam. The organization, operating under the guise of a lawful business, also facilitated and supplied firearms. His son, John Colin Spiby, 37, was sentenced to nine years. Authorities uncovered the operation after an investigation by the Greater Manchester Police.

John Eric Spiby, an 80-year-old lottery winner from near Wigan, was convicted of conspiracy to produce and supply class C drugs, along with firearms offenses, and sentenced to 16 years and six months in prison. Spiby, who won £2.4 million in 2010, used his property to house a large-scale counterfeit drug operation, manufacturing millions of diazepam tablets. The operation, estimated to be worth up to £288 million, involved adapting his premises and purchasing machinery. Spiby and three other men, including his son, were part of an organized crime gang producing drugs on an industrial scale. Despite his defense claiming he was not the principal organizer, the court found Spiby guilty, noting the scale of the drug production was the largest ever uncovered by police.