Bunq ordered designer drugs from website to investigate client

Internet bank Bunq placed an order from a ‘designer drugs’ web shop in order to test whether its client was behind it, according to a court verdict in Amsterdam.

The bank suspected that L W Sales, which was officially registered as running a dental and lab supplies website, was also dealing in potentially forbidden substances via another site, Chemistry Bay.

Rotterdam-based L W Sales had opened an account with the bank last October and, according to the verdict of summary proceedings in Amsterdam, in June it started to receive payments linked to another site, which was offering designer drug ‘3-CMC’ in crystal and powder form. Images of a banned drug, 3-MMC, which acts like an amphetamine, were shown on the site.

In order to fulfil its legal obligations around integrity, Bunq told the court it placed an order for a packet of 3-CMC crystals from the Chemistry Bay website on August 2. It was asked to pay the account it held for the dental supplies firm, DentalVoordeel – owned by L W Sales.

Both 3-CMC and 3-MMC were defined as controlled ‘harmful new drugs’ by the European Commission in March – and the change was incorporated into Dutch law on August 18.

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