Businessman turned supplier to Scots drug gangs caged for 13 years for fixer role

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A businessman who supplied Scottish drug dealers with the equipment to churn out dangerous illegal pills has been caged for his secret underworld dealings.

Sebastiano Sorrenti ran a company that supplied equipment to legitimate pharmaceutical businesses. But he also served as "Machine Guy" to Scottish crime gangs.

He gave them industrial pill presses which they used to produce Etizolam, a Class C drug which in 2021 was a factor in more than 800 drug-related deaths in Scotland.

The same year Kyle Byrne, of Paisley, Renfrewshire, was convicted over drug offences which had been investigated by officers from Police Scotland.

The force recovered pill presses which Byrne's organised crime group had used and analysis of the 33-year-old's phone revealed they had been provided by Sorrenti.

The 35-year-old was stored in Byrne's phone as "Machine Guy" and a National Crime Agency investigation revealed that "Machine Guy" was Sorrenti.

In June 2022, NCA officers, assisted by Wiltshire Police, arrested Sorrenti at his home in Swindon. They recovered pill press stamps, Scottish banknotes and tablets containing Etizolam and MDMA.

The stamps helped prove Sorrenti provided Byrne’s group with equipment because their designs – imitations of the WhatsApp and Snapchat logos – matched branding on pills recovered by Police Scotland.

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Sorrenti also sent Byrne messages discussing delivery of equipment and advice on fixing a malfunctioning press. His service to the organised crime group extended to giving guidance on making Etizolam pills.

Sorrenti, who also sold associates large batches of Class A and C drugs. also sent Byrne a recipe to make 140,000 tablets. Photos shared by the co-conspirators indicate the group’s criminal dealings were lucrative.

NCA drugs experts assessed a single haul of MDMA in one picture to be worth more than £600,000. In another exchange, Byrne sent Sorrenti a picture of a quad bike which was to be part payment for drugs.

Among more than 4,000 messages examined by investigators, Sorrenti discussed evading police detection, little realising that his communications would ultimately lead the NCA to him.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Sorrenti denied supplying drugs to criminals in Scotland. He claimed his phone number had been spoofed, however a forensic examination of the phone by NCA officers found no evidence of spoofing.

Cell site data retrieved by the investigation team also proved Sorrenti had made numerous trips to Scotland on dates correlating with messages arranging collection and delivery of illicit goods.

Today, Sorrenti pleaded guilty to all the charges against him and was sentenced immediately afterwards to 13 years in jail following the National Crime Agency (NCA) probe.

NCA Lead Investigator Rory Duffin said: "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, and troubleshooting problems that arose. Working with Police Scotland, we’ve ensured that Sorrenti, who played a critical role for a number of organised criminals, is now in jail."

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