Essex University student ran lucrative drug supply business

University of Essex student Sebastian Stratica, 22, offered up a varied menu of illicit drugs to customers, using social media service Snapchat as a means of advertising his wares.

Ipswich Crown Court heard police were called out to his private accommodation in Colchester in May 2020.

Officers were responding to reports a man had been seriously injured in a stabbing at Stratica’s flat.

Adam Norris, prosecuting, said: “It soon became clear it was Mr Stratica who had stabbed him.

"He and his brother, who was also present, were arrested by the police.

"A search was carried out and found within the flat were drugs of different varieties, at Class A, B and C, and some cash.”

The court heard the property was being used as a base for drug supply, with Stratica at the operation’s centre.

Mr Norris said: “He was advertising, running the business and giving advice to others about how to go about supplying drugs.”

Sebastian Stratica

The court heard the business also involved bank transfers, while HM Revenue and Customs seized imports of drugs from Canada bound for the UK on Stratica’s order.

Mr Norris said the business was “no simple dispersing of drugs between friends at university”, but rather an operation driven by profit with the “expectation of significant financial advantage”.

He said Stratica had offered up a “smorgasbord and menu” of different drugs to customers.

The drugs on sale included cannabis, MDMA, amphetamines, psilocin, ketamine and diazepam.

The court heard the value of the drugs seized from the flat totalled around £1,200, while cash in the region of £2,200 was also uncovered.

Daniel O’Malley, mitigating, said his client is “medically qualified to the extent he can work in a laboratory setting”.

“He has a bachelor’s degree in medical sciences and graduated shortly after his arrest for these matters,” he said.

“He was arrested at the time of taking his final exams.”

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Mr O’Malley told the court Stratica had been misusing drugs because of the stress attached to his studies and the “pressure to succeed”.

“Very wrongly he believed drug use would aid his relaxation and subsequently enhance his ability to study,” he said.

“He became addicted to low-level drugs. He knows as well as anyone, from his studies and the nature of his degree, the harm he caused himself and the harm these substances could have caused to others.”

The court heard Stratica had since weaned himself off drugs and planned to study for a Masters degree.

He told his barrister he wants “to help people, to save lives and to make a difference”.

Mr O’Malley urged the judge to suspend a prison sentence to give his client the opportunity to “take forth his plans to be a good man, to assist society at large in the future”.

Stratica admitted two counts of being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs, four counts of being concerned in the supply of Class B drugs and one count of being concerned in the supply of a Class C drug.

Recorder Gabrielle Posner said Stratica, of Forest Road, Colchester, had “thrown away” his future career.

“I find this is a tragic case, you’re someone with real potential who clearly comes from a good, loving family,” she said.

But she said Stratica had displayed “little thought” for the misery, health and welfare of those he supplied.

Stratica was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment.

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