Coroner ‘deeply concerned’ over website Nang Wizard selling drugs to ‘smart, happy’ Crown Casino employee
A coroner is “deeply concerned” about how a shady website sells massive quantities of an illegal drug after a part-time Melbourne actor was found dead in his bedroom.
A Crown Casino employee and part-time actor was found dead just days after buying a “massive” quantity of nitrous oxide gas on shady website Nang Wizard, which openly exploits a loopholes in Victorian drug laws.
Coroner Audrey Jamieson said she was “deeply concerned” over the death of the “smart, happy, friendly” 26-year-old Elsternwick man, who she referred to in her findings by the pseudonym “RBJ”.
In the days before he died, the man ordered 300 small disposable canisters of nitrous oxide online, and was given a “massive” 640g tank of the gas for free by the operators of website Nang Wizard.
Nitrous oxide is commonly known as “laughing gas” and is used as a light anaesthetic in hospitals, and has legitimate commercial uses, such as making whipped cream.
But it is illegal to sell for illicit consumption.
Dozens of grey-market websites, offer “nangs” for sale under the guise of being legitimate hospitality suppliers.
A coronial investigation into another man’s death last year — who drowned after passing out in a spa after inhaling a nitrous oxide canister at a buck’s weekend at Tootgarook — found there were “a number of Australia websites” that “hint (with varying degrees of subtlety) at their products being suitable for recreational use”.
Ms Jamieson said there was a legal loophole.
“In summary, it is legal for any person to sell or supply nitrous oxide in Victoria, so long as they do not know or believe (within reason) that the nitrous oxide is for recreational use.”
Ms Jamieson said of Nang Wizard: “I am deeply concerned RBJ was so easily able to purchase nitrous oxide online, and that such a large order was delivered to a residential address.”
Ms Jamieson had investigators write to Nang Wizard’s owner, seeking answers about how the company ensured its customers were “bona fide, non-recreational”.
But the owner objected to providing a witness statement, on the grounds doing so may tend to incriminate him.
The owner was not named in Ms Jamieson’s findings, but Nang Wizard’s website says the corporate entity behind the business is Gorilla Commerce, the sole director and shareholder of which is Blake Movis, 25, of Croydon.
The company’s website promises delivery of orders “in under one hour to any customer in Melbourne”.
RBJ frequently used the gas as an illegal drug, with his housemate estimating he used 15 to 20 small canisters every second day, to the point he would “make himself incoherent”.
His mother told investigators he “could hardly string a sentence together” at times.
The company’s website promises delivery of orders “in under one hour to any customer in Melbourne”.
RBJ’s cold body was found on his bed, with the a canister of the gas hooked up to a face mask he was wearing, and the “massive” canister next to him.
An autopsy determined he likely suffocated from lack of oxygen.
Ms Jamieson recommended the Victorian Department of Health consider clamping down on the illicit nitrous oxide trade, as other states have done.
Calls to Nang Wizard went unanswered.
