‘I felt like a fraud’: Inside ‘double life’ of a steroid kingpin turned drug manufacturer

Source: Radio New Zealand

Nearly 10 years after he made headlines when he was jailed for running a large national steroid ring, Joshua Townshend has been sentenced to home detention this time for his part in a drug manufacturing ring and laundering nearly $700,000. National Crime Correspondent Sam Sherwood reports.

Joshua Townshend was in bed when he heard something like the burst of a siren coming from outside his newly-built Governor’s Bay home followed by a heavy knock on the door.

It was December 20, 2022.

Townshend walked to the front door, opened it and saw a “flurry of police activity”.

“I was just speechless for a long period of time, and I should have seen it coming…”

The raid signalled the end of Townshend’s criminal enterprise that involved importing and manufacturing drugs. An enterprise he’d thought about while in prison serving a sentence for his role as the kingpin of a steroid ring that spanned the country.

More than three years on Townshend, and two of his co-defendants, were sentenced in the Christchurch District Court. Townshend earlier pleaded guilty to representative charges of importing a Class C controlled drug analogue, manufacturing a Class C controlled drug, money laundering. The 39-year-old also admitted charges of possessing a Class A controlled drug (LSD), and possessing a Class B controlled drug (ecstasy).

Before he was sentenced to 12 months home detention he spoke to RNZ about his latest criminal offending, how it unravelled, and how his “dishonesty and deceit” filtered into every aspect of his life.

The steroid ring

In May 2017, Townshend was sentenced to two years imprisonment after pleading guilty to 129 charges under the Medicines Act and two charges of driving while disqualified.

Court documents say Townshend operated a “large national steroid ring” importing raw ingredients and manufacturing products for use as performance and image enhancers. He then sold the drugs through a website and a Facebook page.

“The business was lucrative, recording annual sales of around $350,000 with typical profit margins for this type of enterprise of 2000-5000%.”

Townshend had been warned by Medsafe of the illegality of his business, in March 2013 and April 2014. In February 2014 he pleaded guilty to two earlier charges of importing Class C drugs and was sentenced to nine months home detention and 200 hours community work. He committed part of his offending while on the sentence.

Townshend later appealed his sentence in the High Court at Christchurch. Justice Gendall dismissed his appeal and said the “scale and persistency” of Townshend’s offending must be recognised.

“Mr Townshend ran his illegal steroid business as a very large scale and lucrative operation and, in particular, for a substantial period of time while he was subject to an earlier sentence of home detention for illegally importing Class C controlled drugs.

“Mr Townshend’s conduct involved a high degree of pre-meditation. It was a cynical and deliberate, prolifically advertised, very large scale, operation run for high profit.”

Prior to being jailed Townshend was an associate of Raymond Moreton, who is the owner and operator of R&M Trailers Limited, with Townshend receiving payments through Moreton’s business account.

According to the summary of facts for Townshend’s latest offending while he was in custody he was in regular contact with Moreton, calling him 61 times.

Townshend told RNZ that when he went into prison he was “still very financially motivated”, and while he was in prison he was thinking about how his next enterprise would be possible.

“Once I got to prison, I met numerous people … who had huge amounts of money ready to go.”

He says that in prison he was exposed to people with criminal networks and backgrounds that he was not used to. He says high level drug offending was “kind of glamorised” in prison.

“Men in there wanted to appear to be more dominant and all that kind of thing. And so steroids, obviously can achieve that.

“But then the financial element as well, people asking me what I did, and it was very quickly that it kind of like presented itself as more opportunities to offend over time.”

He says people would say to him: “if you can get this for me, or you can do that for me, then I could have that for you that day”.

“The financial drive I had to make money that way was almost kind of like enabled or supported by that. There was new avenues for me to offend in ways that I hadn’t had before.”

On May 8, 2018, Townshend was released from prison and he began receiving payments from Moreton.

“When I got out of prison, I’d almost given myself permission to re-offend,” Townshend says.

“That was the problem. I was still very financially motivated. And so my goal, I guess, was getting back on my feet. And in hindsight, that getting back on my feet was probably just financially driven to a standard that I think was unrealistic… it started almost immediately.

“What I’d got used to was having options, you know, having the ability to live a lifestyle that I hadn’t encountered before… the money really made me feel like I could succeed in some form.

He says making honest money would’ve taken genuine employment and going through avenues such as studying which he didn’t feel capable of.

“I didn’t feel that with my criminal history that getting stable employment was even possible to the same level of financial potential that I had with this… there was numerous times prior to going to prison where I tried, attempted to start legitimate businesses, and it was very hard for me to put down the illicit trade, because the illicit trade was so much more lucrative,”

“It was almost impossible, it felt impossible, for me to look elsewhere when I was willing to take, at the time those high risks for high rewards.”

In 2020, Townshend incorporated a company, Enfuse Limited, which operated as a juice business.

After hiring a warehouse space in Ferrymead he met Stuart Chadwick, the director and shareholder of Commercial Property Management Limited. Chadwick later incorporated CPM Health Ltd, which took over the juice business from Enfuse Limited.

In September 2021, Chadwick and Townshend moved their businesses to a larger warehouse space in Hillsborough.

The drugs

Between May 30, 2018 and August 23, 2022 Townshend and Moreton regularly imported consignments containing 4-methylpropiophenone which were delivered to Moreton’s address.

The summary of facts says synthetic cathinones are often sold as MDMA, also known as Ecstasy. Mephedrone is commonly sold in New Zealand under the false pretence of being true MDMA and has a street value of about $200 per gram.

Only three of the consignments were intercepted, each of which contained 4-methylpropiophenone. There were 39 consignments that were addressed to RM Engineering, Raymond Moreton, Joshua Townshend, Eukora Health, Enfuse or variations of those names.

“These imports were from similar addresses in China and consistently labelled as ‘Synthetic/Organic Pigment’, ‘Silicone/Silicone sample’ or something similar, and described as having ‘no commercial value’.”

Throughout this period $285,000 in cash was deposited into Townshend’s account. He also used a further $69,000 in cash to buy six vehicles. The cash was the proceeds of selling Mephedrone.

Police were unable to determine the exact amount of mephedrone manufactured, but were able to make an estimate based on the amount of money that was made.

“Using this range, the laundered money suggests that Mr Moreton and Mr Townshend manufactured between 4.8 and 21 kilograms of mephedrone.”

Townshend says he did a lot of research into the “chemistry elements” of the operation.

“There’s a degree of basic chemistry knowledge that I think anyone needs to know to do this kind of thing, which I didn’t have.

“I was learning backwards. So instead of understanding it from a from a fundamental kind of like ground up perspective, I was trying to understand it from the top down, which was quite complex and very high risk and frustrating at times. I felt like it was a problem to be solved, I think, at the time, and I wasn’t really considering the harm that was coming from it.”

Once he had successfully manufactured it he tested the products on himself and got addicted to “quite a serious degree” where he says he was up for days at a time using them.

Over time he had people “lined up that were willing to purchase”.

“Demand just stayed pretty current from there.”

He says the group the drugs were supplied to was “one or two individuals at a time”.

“It was just people who had the money available. I guess my methodology at the time was to try and minimise how many people I dealt with, and I did my best to avoid any kind of like association with gangs and things, although at points it was unavoidable.”

The painting

In May 2019, Customs staff visited Moreton after finding 4-methylpropiophenone in one of his imports. He told them it was for waterproofing, which they accepted.

Then, three years later, in September 2022, Customs intercepted and seized a 29kg fibreboard drum that had been imported by Townshend and Moreton. The drum, from Shanghai Doing Industry Limited in China, had been declared as “silicon with no commercial value”.

However, inside the drum was a separate 25 litre blue plastic container containing about 25kgs of 4-methylpropiophenone.

Customs seized the shipment due to it being falsely declared and containing a precursor for illegal drug manufacture.

Townshend recalls a letter coming in the mail to say it had been seized and that they had identified what the chemical was.

“That was my first kind of like warning that they understood at the very least what the chemical was and I know that there’s only a handful of things that can be used for, so I guess that was my first clue that something was being done about it. But there was a degree of complacency in me, and because I was still so financially driven at that time, my priority, I guess, was still maintaining that lifestyle and flow of money.”

On November 25, 2022 police obtained a surveillance device warrant targeting Townshend, Moreton and Chadwick.

During a conversation Townshend advised Moreton that he was planning on doing some “painting” before Christmas and New Year’s but would do a test first to make sure the “paint” they imported works.

Townshend said if he can get a couple of things “painted up” before New Year’s, they could move it, he could keep a couple of people happy, and they could both benefit from it.

The summary of facts said painting was a reference to manufacturing drugs, and moving is a common reference to supplying drugs.

On December 9, 2022 Townshend called Moreton and told him had everything ready to go, including the blue drum, but he still needed ethyl acetate (an extraction solvent that can be used in the manufacture of various drugs). They discussed a supplier and Moreton agreed to obtain some for Townshend.

Townshend said he still had to do a test paint to see if it dried properly. He said if it was OK, they should make it happen as “we’ve got everything here”.

The raids

On December 20, 2022 search warrants were carried out at Townshend’s home, Moreton’s address, and the warehouse used by Townshend and Chadwick.

Townshend was in bed when the police arrived.

“It felt very embarrassing to have such a huge police presence in a place that I’d just moved into, I was like a bit of a deer in the headlights, to be honest.”

Inside Townshend’s bedroom was 18 tabs of LSD, and nine tablets of MDMA.

He also had some cash, syringes and 50 vials of various liquids and substances and some snap-lock bags with quantities of white powder.

Townshend says that while on his way to the police station a police officer said to him “you’re in a bit of a downward spiral aren’t you?”.

“I said ‘yeah’, I kind of acknowledged at that point that my life was finally kind of falling apart.”

At the warehouse were various items used in the manufacture of mephedrone.

The summary of facts said Townshend engaged in a total of $669,000 of money laundering. This excluded an unknown sum he used to fund the purchase of land in Governors Bay as well as plan and build the house. Townshend and Chadwick built a high-spec house on the section which sold in November 2022 for $1.2 million.

Moreton engaged in $689,000 in money laundering transactions.

When spoken to by police Townshend declined to comment.

Moreton denied any involvement in criminal activity and claimed the imports were all for legitimate purposes. He claimed ammunition found at his home was mistakenly purchased on TradeMe. He admitted MDMA was his but claimed mephedrone was Viagra.

Chadwick declined to comment.

Townshend says in the months prior to his arrest he was beginning to feel “quite sick internally”.

“When you’re making huge amounts of money illegally, as much as you have these options, it’s very hollow.

“I couldn’t really enjoy myself as much as I wanted to be. You know, when you’re paying for hotels in cash and things like that, you just really do feel like you’re kind of existing outside of society.”

He also struggled with living a double-life.

“When you are meeting people socially, and you may present as someone successful, and they ask you, what do you do? And I have to make something up, that’s incredibly hard. I couldn’t be proud of what I did. I couldn’t be honest about what I did, so the dishonesty and deceit ended up filtering into every aspect of my life… I felt like a fraud.

“If I met, you know, a new girl and I met her parents, you know, I had to, I had to lie if I met people out and about with friends, I had to lie if I was even talking to my own family.”

He recalls a conversation with his mother who was concerned about how he was making money.

“She asked me, ‘what’s going on?’ And I had to reassure her that everything was fine when it was absolutely not fine.

“And that kind of double life, looking over your shoulder all the time, you know, worrying about potentially being raided at any point. You know, driving past a police car and thinking, are they going to turn around? All that kind of stuff is just, it’s the pits. It makes this kind of lifestyle incredibly hard as it should.”

He was also in the grips of addiction to multiple substances.

Townshend was in the cells for the night after his arrest. The following morning he was released on bail, which he calls “an incredible gift”.

“From that point, I had to kind of reassess my life and work out what direction I was going and kind of what had happened.”

He says he was still “very financially motivated”, but started to rule out “illicit ways of making money”.

“I was like, I can’t continue to do this. I’m looking at prison time now. What am I going to do?”

He says he did a coaching diploma and psychology diploma through polytech. Halfway through the year he was diagnosed with ADHD and started taking medication. He says being medicated helped him with his studies and he turned his psychology diploma into a degree which he finished last year.

He also did a short rehabilitative programme and engaged in peer support work. He has recently started a master’s degree in health psychology through Massey University.

Sentencing

RNZ spoke with Townshend in the hours before his sentencing.

He said he was feeling “much calmer than I thought I would”.

“I’ve come to a place of real acceptance with this. It’s been a while that it’s been going through courts and so I think if I compare it back to the last time I was facing this kind of thing, last time, I didn’t really have much purpose outside of what I had been doing.

“And the difference that I feel now is, I think over the last three years, I’ve discovered myself a lot more, and I’ve, I guess, learned a lot more about the harm that my offending was causing, and so I’m just accepting of what the court process needs to do, and I know that regardless of the outcome, I’ve got a better future ahead of me.”

At sentencing, Crown prosecutor Will Taffs told the court the offending was a “reasonably sophisticated drug operation on a large scale”.

He said the “magic figure” when looking at the offending was the $1.2m that was laundered.

A number of methods were used to launder money including construction of a house, salary payments and buying vehicles.

He said Townshend had since his arrest “really put his best foot forward”.

However, he said the offending was “almost a continuation of previous offending”.

“He was released on release conditions and immediately engaged in the same type of operation but on a much larger scale.”

Townshend’s lawyer, Olivia Jarvis says the man standing before the Judge today was a different one to the one who committed the offending and referred to the steps he had taken.

“It’s difficult to see what else he could’ve done since the offending.”

She submitted an appropriate sentence was home detention.

She referenced his ADHD diagnosis and said it “helps to understand why he offended and that impulsive desire…”

Jarvis said Townshend’s Master’s degree was also a significant factor. She said if Townshend was jailed drug treatment would be unlikely to be considered appropriate given the steps he had already taken to address his addictions. He would also likely lose the opportunity to continue his Master’s degree.

She said Townshend had shown “extraordinary remorse”.

Jarvis submitted to the court her client’s rehabilitation had been nothing short of remarkable, and Judge Raoul Neave said he was inclined to agree.

“Mr Townshend has taken remarkable steps to educate and rehabilitate himself,” Neave said.

“The individual who stands before the court today is a completely different one to the individual who committed the offending.”

“Mr Townshend has completely reinvented himself in a way that is incredibly impressive,” Judge Neave said.

Judge Neave said the criminal enterprise was substantial.

“It’s clearly a commercial enterprise on a significant scale.

“This was a sophisticated and determined operation involving a significant number of sales and a high level of proceeds.”

Despite the large sum of money Townshend had obtained through manufacturing and supplying the drugs, “it’s unlikely he will ever see a penny of it”, Judge Neave said.

He sentenced Townshend to 12 months home detention and 250 hours community work.

Moreton, 57, earlier pleaded guilty to representative charges of importing a Class C controlled drug analogue, manufacturing a Class C controlled drug and money laundering. He also admitted unlawful possession of ammunition and possessing a Class B controlled drug. He was sentenced to 12 months home detention and 300 hours community work.

Chadwick, 62, pleaded guilty to a representative charge of engaging in a money laundering transaction.

Judge Neave said Chadwick was reckless rather than sinister and he was not directly involved in producing or supplying drugs. However, he was “no mere dupe nor hapless”, Judge Neave said.

He was sentenced to four months home detention.

‘Anyone’s capable of change’

Townshend says he’s “incredibly embarrassed about the way I’ve conducted myself throughout my life”.

“I can see through working with people who have been in active addiction and have come from very dysfunctional upbringings and things, how much harm drugs do in society, especially addictive stimulants, like the ones that I was providing, I acknowledge that harm and take full responsibility for it, and I am committed to make some changes.”

Asked what his message would be to those who say he’ll never change, Townshend says “anyone’s capable of change”.

Asked if it was all worth it, Townshend replied: “absolutely not”.

“I wouldn’t want to not have the lessons that I’ve learned now, and I wouldn’t want to change who I am. But if I could take back the drug offending and all of it for any level of money made, I would take it back without a doubt.”

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