Poisoner foiled by Diet Coke, UK court told

Photo / Brett Phibbs

A bank worker in Canary Wharf tried to kill her "manipulative and controlling" magistrate mother with a deadly poison bought over the internet, in a plot inspired by Breaking Bad, a London court heard.

Kuntal Patel, 38, wanted to murder her "evil" mother, Meena, because she had ruined her hopes of marrying the man she loved, Southwark Crown Court was told.

She bought the poison abrin on the "dark web" from a dealer in America whom she nicknamed "Heisenberg" after the chemistry teacher turned drug manufacturer in the television hit Breaking Bad who uses ricin poison in a murder plot.

However, the NZ$1800 poison had no effect because Patel put it in a can of Diet Coke and the acid in the drink destroyed it.

Patel, a graphic designer for Barclays Bank in Canary Wharf, hatched the plot after enduring years of violence and abuse at the hands of her mother which culminated in her being forbidden to marry Niraj Kakad, an American she met on Shaadi.com, an Asian dating site, prosecutor Jonathon Polnay said.

"Inspired, in part, by the US series Breaking Bad, she acquired a deadly toxin called abrin, a close relation to ricin. She paid using Bitcoins and used layer upon layer of encryption to try to cover her tracks."

When the drug did not work, she allegedly emailed the dealer to tell him "something had gone wrong" and pleaded for an even deadlier batch.

After her arrest in January, Patel rang her mother from prison to tell her "I was going to kill you", the jury heard. Meena Patel, a magistrate working in domestic violence and race relations, was "not a nice woman at all", Polnay said. She had locked her daughter in her home, beat her, and demanded she stop seeing Kakad, to whom Patel later became engaged.

In a series of highly abusive messages she branded her daughter a "witch" and "f***ed up brain girl who cannot be my blood". She described Kakad as "black ugly fatso elephant".

In a desperate email to a friend, Patel said: "She has stolen my future away from me. I couldn't care less about my life anymore. I would prefer to be dead."

She bought the poison from a website which was almost untraceable, but which was under FBI surveillance. She allegedly told Jesse Korff, who ran the site, that "she had been watching too much Breaking Bad". He delivered the poison concealed in a wax candle.

Upon her arrest, Patel told police she bought the abrin to commit suicide. She denies attempted murder and a charge of acquiring a biological agent or toxin. She has admitted two counts of attempting to acquire abrin. The trial continues.