SLIPPING the poison into her mother’s glass, lovestruck Kuntal Patel thought it was the start of a new life with the man she loved – but it was a chilling and twisted plan which was about to backfire.
She’d paid to have the substance smuggled into the UK in a candle and was now using it to try to kill off domineering mum Meena, 60, who was hell bent on refusing to let her marry.
But it didn’t go to plan and Meena survived, leaving Kuntal behind bars and separated from her American fiancé, Niraj Kakad.
After the couple met on a dating website and got engaged, it soon became clear that Meena didn’t approve of the romance.
She allegedly beat Kuntal, 37, stopped her from going out and demanded she dump him.
Meena is also said to have sent her daughter vile emails and texts attacking her, her friends and her lover.
Undeterred, it was a year after her engagement when Kuntal began to search online for “untraceable poisons” and “how to murder someone and get away with it”.
She then made contact with an American dealer called Jesse Korff, who was advertising poisons on the dark web using the pseudonym ‘Snowman840’.
In a post shared online, he allegedly offered to supply “Breaking Bad-style ricin” with an advert reading: “This is a listing for the extremely toxic protein Ricin, seen on Breaking Bad.”
Just three days after discovering the site, Kuntal, a graphic designer from Plaistow, east London, is said to have set up an account on Korff’s website and nicknamed him Heisenberg.
The moniker was a nod to Bryan Cranston’s teacher-turned-drug-dealer character, Walter White, in hit series Breaking Bad, who went by the alias of Heisenberg.
They began exchanging emails and in one to Korff, Kuntal allegedly wrote: “Hi Heisenberg”, adding: “I have been watching too much Breaking Bad.”
She also went on to describe Meena’s disapproval towards her relationship, saying: “I can’t be with the man I love because my mother doesn’t like him.
“I can only be with him if she is out of the way.”
Kuntal was brought up a strict Hindu Gujarati alongside her younger sister, and she had never had a boyfriend or received a Valentine’s Day card.
When she met her fiancé Niraj, who lived in Arizona, US, she felt she’d struck gold – and would do whatever it took to be with him.
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In a plot which mirrored how drug lord Walter White murdered an enemy with ricin-laced tea in Breaking Bad, Kuntal then paid £950 in bitcoins for a deadly toxin called abrin, a chemical similar to ricin.
Both chemicals work by seeping into cells and preventing them from making the proteins our bodies need, leading to death.
After handing over the cash, Kuntal’s poison arrived in Britain hidden inside a red scented candle which she later dropped into Meena’s glass of Diet Coke.
A court heard later how Kuntal duped her close friend Julie Wong into having the package containing the deadly poison delivered to her home in Streatham, South London, by saying her partner was sending her a gift.
I can’t be with the man I love because my mother doesn’t like him. I can only be with him if she is out of the way
Kuntal Patel
But there was one key flaw in Kuntal’s cunning plan.
Abrin, which has no known antidote, is at its most toxic when injected or inhaled but less powerful when swallowed – and Meena survived.
Kuntal was furious, and in another message to Korff she is said to have written: “Something has definitely gone wrong somewhere as everything is normal.
“Yes, target drank all of it. I made sure I watched her drink it all.”
But unbeknown to Kuntal, the FBI were investigating Korff and during his arrest, US officers passed on information they’d unearthed about Kuntal to Scotland Yard.
In January 2014, UK police swooped at the £450,000 home Kuntal shared with her mum and sister Poonam, then 33, and following searches she was arrested.
They had earlier raided Ms Wong’s home and stormed the home of Ms Wong’s neighbour James Sutcliffe – the son of Foreign Office diplomat Nicholas Sutcliffe – after he innocently took delivery of the package.
Details emerged during the trial at Southwark Crown Court, including how Kuntal contacted a dealer in the US through the “dark web” and said she needed a “tasteless” and deadly toxin to get her mother “out of the way”.
She allegedly developed a murder plot after becoming “addicted” to the American TV series.
If it was the plot of a Hollywood or Bollywood film, you would say it was far-fetched
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay
Kuntal was cleared of attempted murder but convicted of acquiring a biological toxin and handed a three-year jail term in November 2014.
It was the first time that someone was prosecuted under the Biological Weapons Act.
During sentencing, Justice Rabinder Singh described how Kuntal had endured “a prolonged period of severe stress” and had committed the offences after seeing “no way out”.
And while Kuntal admitted fantasising about her mother’s death, she denied trying to kill her.
Meena would seek to control every aspect of her daughters’ lives. And worst of all, she forbade Kuntal from marrying the man she loved.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay
She claimed that the plot was “purely a fantasy” and she’d planned to use the poison to take her own life instead.
Meena was absent in court and didn’t cooperate with investigators, but the court heard of a reconciliation between mother and daughter during tearful telephone calls to prison where Kuntal is said to have taken blame.
During the trial, prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said: “If it was the plot of a Hollywood or Bollywood film, you would say it was far-fetched.”
Mr Polnay said it typified Meena’s controlling and often abusive relationship with her daughters.
She was highly manipulative and controlling — she would seek to control every aspect of her daughters’ lives
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay
He added: “In private, Meena Patel, a magistrate who worked in domestic violence and race relations, was not a nice woman.
“She’d regularly used foul and abusive language, including highly racist language. She would, on occasions, be violent.
“She was highly manipulative and controlling — she would seek to control every aspect of her daughters’ lives.
“And worst of all, she forbade Kuntal from marrying the man she loved.
“Kuntal was firm in her desire to marry Niraj and have children.
“Meena’s attitude was ‘over my dead body’.”
