Police arrested a chef from the Greater Toronto Area for allegedly selling sodium nitrite, a lethal poison that was also legal, after two people in the Peel region were found dead.
According to the Toronto Star, officers had found one of the deceased in late March and believe the death is connected to the sale of the poison.
Police claim that the chef in question, Kenneth Law, sold the substance to suicidal people. The article explains that sodium nitrite is a preservative salt that can be safely used in the preparation of certain meats like bacon.
A separate investigation by the British publication The Times found that Law had been allegedly selling the poison internationally through a disguised website aimed at deterring authorities.
An undercover reporter inquired about the poison and asked how to take the substance. Law eventually answered the query and told the reporter that some of his customers had told him he was doing “God’s work.” The report also claims that Law said he had sold the product to “hundreds.”
Though the charges laid only connect the two deaths in the Peel region to Law’s alleged sales, police claim that Law shipped approximately 1200 packages to 40 different countries.
“We can’t say categorically all of those [packages] contain sodium nitrite,” Deputy Chief Marc Andrews said in the Toronto Star’s article.
