A British multi-millionaire chemist behind controversial businesses that sold ‘legal’ LSD-based hallucinogens ‘for research’ could be facing up to life in prison in a high-security US prison after being accused of a conspiracy to import banned class A drugs into the country.
Alexander Stratford, 35, is battling extradition to the US after he was arrested by National Crime Agency (NCA) officers and brought before Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
At a brief hearing last Thursday, the court heard he was detained on an international arrest warrant relating to three alleged offences between August 2016 and December 2024.
The document states that he ‘conspired with others to import/export class A drugs, namely 1-Cyclopropionyl Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (1cP-LSD) to the US, contrary to common law and Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and Section 50 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.’
Stratford is wanted in the state of Maryland, according to the Crown Prosecution Service, which is dealing with the request for US prosecutors.
Count one is conspiracy to import the modified LSD into the US, count two is conspiracy to manufacture and distribute the substance for unlawful importation into the US and a third charge is ‘conspiracy to launder monetary instruments’.
Similar offences, involving large quantities of drugs sold over several years, have attracted sentences of 20 years to life in prison, as well as huge fines.
If convicted in Maryland, convicts are typically incarcerated in a high-security United States penitentiary at either USP Hazelton, located in West Virginia, USP Lee in Virginia, or USP Canaan in Pennsylvania.
Read more
