May 29, 2026
Poison Seller Linked to nearly 150 Deaths around the World
Law, who pleaded guilty in connection with 14 deaths in Ontario, is not charged elsewhere reports Thomas Daigle of CBC News.
Products sold by Kenneth Law are linked to the deaths of nearly 150 people around the world, including the following people.
The new estimate is based on information requests and interviews with families, as well as an exhaustive review of court records and authorities’ statements over the past three years.
Still, the real number of deaths tied to Law’s products may never be known. Not all incidents have been investigated by law enforcement.
In a Newmarket, Ont., court on Friday, Law pleaded guilty to abetting 14 suicides across the province between 2021 and 2023.
In turn, Crown prosecutors said they would later withdraw the 14 counts of first-degree murder that he was facing in connection with the same deaths.
At the same hearing, Law admitted responsibility for 79 deaths in Britain.
Shopify paid Kenneth Law $149K for deadly poison sales to at-risk buyers, court records show.
The former hotel cook has been in custody since his May 2023 arrest at his Mississauga, Ont., home. Law, 60, will be sentenced at a later date.
He has not been charged in any other jurisdiction and appears unlikely to stand trial elsewhere. On Thursday, British authorities told bereaved families he would not face prosecution for deaths in England and Wales.
Kenneth Law was arrested at his home in Mississauga, Ont., in May 2023. (Peel Regional Police)
Court heard Law ran online shops selling a legal, but potentially lethal chemical and other suicide paraphernalia.
Investigators said Law shipped 1,209 packages to buyers in 41 countries, including 160 to Canadian destinations and more than 200 to the U.K.
On Friday, the Ontario court heard Law made 431 shipments to the U.S., and others to Australia, Brazil, China, India, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and South Korea.
Canadian law enforcement informed Interpol, which alerted authorities from Australia to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta. In some instances, wellness checks carried out at the buyers’ homes led police to seize Law’s products.
B.C. RCMP said they set up a task force to manage at least six separate investigations in the province.
They are separate from the Ontario proceedings, RCMP Staff Sgt. Kris Clark recently told CBC in an email, “with the priority focus on securing perishable evidence and preparing for potential charges specific to criminal offences here in B.C.”
A young man wearing sunglasses, a young woman wearing a graduation cap and a young man smiling
Authorities in several other countries, including Italy, Switzerland and Germany, have confirmed to CBC that individuals have died after their names appeared on a list of Law’s clients.
A New Zealand coroner found at least five people in the country died by suicide after purchasing products from the Canadian.
In the U.K. alone, a spokesperson for the National Crime Agency (NCA) said it had investigated 112 deaths.
One dad tracks source
After the death of his 22-year-old son Tom Parfett near London in Oct. 2021, David Parfett set out to track the source of the substance Tom ingested.
David raised his concerns with a Times of London journalist, whose investigation into Law’s products was published days before his arrest.
“I am 99 per cent certain that if my son was unable to source this drug, he’d still be here,” David Parfett told CBC in 2023.
In a joint letter sent to families on Thursday, an NCA investigator and a British prosecutor said Law would not face prosecution in England and Wales, where the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service assesses the viability of criminal charges.
“Ultimately,” the officials said, “the decision is based on a legal assessment of the risk that it would not have been possible to extradite Mr. Law.”
They said the harm he caused abroad would be taken into account at sentencing in Ontario.
“I am angry, but I am not surprised,” David Parfett said. “If our own country will not put anyone on trial for these deaths, the very least it can do is hold a proper inquiry into how they were allowed to happen.”
Ont.-U.S. collaboration
Investigators in Ontario said they’ve also worked with American authorities, including the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI.
In Chicago, Gerald Cohn said he and his mother were interviewed by federal agents following his brother Benjamin Cohn’s death in February 2023.
“I’m just giving the FBI everything I have on my brother’s phone … any information,” Gerald previously said in an interview. “They were well aware of Law in this area.”
Gerald Cohn shared with CBC a screenshot of a $75.85 US receipt sent to his brother — bearing an email address linked to Law — for a purchase from EscMode, an online company that police say Law operated.
“I want something where I can say we got justice for Benji.”
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