A man who made between £300,000 and possibly as much as a million pounds over a number of years selling magic mushrooms has been jailed.

James Edmans appeared at Plymouth Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to a number of offences surrounding his illicit operation which saw him grow and sell psilocin – a class A drug – on the dark web.

Prosecutor Rowan Jenkins said a case against the 36-year-old, from Furzehatt Road came to light on August 15, 2023 when he was seen getting into his mother’s car, who was going to drive him a short distance to a post box.

He was in possession of a carrier bag of items he was about to post, which the court heard had happened “many times before”. They were both stopped by the police executing a search warrant.

Edmans was found to be wearing a pair of gloves which Mr Jenkins said was being done to avoid forensic links to the packages. On arrest, Edmans was heard to say “oh f***, my life is over, will you search my house?”

Mr Jenkins said the warrant had been secured because in June of that year, an undercover officer had made a purchase on the dark web from a vendor using the name “SweetgreenUK” which was advertising various strains of magic mushrooms.

She paid around £53 and later collected a package which held dried mushrooms, containing psilocin. The package was eventually tracked back – despite using a false postcode – to Edmans.

At the property officers found Edmans, his 62-year-old mother Kim Edmunds and “several” of her grandchildren. Officers also found more than 100 bags of growing substrate which was used to “successfully cultivating this fungi”, dehumidifiers, plastic gloves, air dryers and a computer which was later examined.

Mr Jenkins said it was “effectively the entire set up for a grow to aid production, aid preparation and aid packaging of these drugs”. He said the prosecution’s case was the property was a “slick and well organised operation”, which was out of sight of the occupants of the house, but it must have been known it was underway.

He told the court that information gathered by police revealed what was believed to be a “seven-year period”, and while it was “impossible” for the prosecution to say exactly how much Edmans earned in that time, a variety of methods had been used including the potential yield, the packages sizes, the cost per gram of magic mushrooms, a number of different cryptocurrency wallets containing bitcoin which were attained “exclusively through the dark web”.

The sales resulted in reviews from purchasers, which the court heard included 640 separate reviews during an 18-month-period and that they could show there were 3,444 orders processed of which 3,001 of the orders had weights linked to them.

Using all these different methods Mr Jenkins said the maximum they believed Edmans received in sales of at least 50kg of magic mushrooms into his cryptocurrency wallets during the seven year period was “£1.234 million” although he conceded that at the “absolute minimum” Edmans made was £303,000.

He said however the court looked at it, this was an operation on a “commercial scale”.

Mr Jenkins said the mushrooms had originated in Thailand and Edmans had been known to travel to the country where he had a Thai girlfriend.

The court was told that he had initially claimed that he had been pressured into the business by his girlfriend, but this line of defence was later discarded as a text message was found in 2021 where Edmans said “the opposite”.

As a result of the police’s inquiries, Edmans was eventually charged with possession with intent to supply class A psilocin (magic mushrooms), supply of class A psilocin, production of a class A drug psilocin, money laundering and supply of class B drug cannabis. The court heard that the sale of cannabis amounted to a very short period of time at the beginning of his magic mushroom enterprise.

In addition, Kim Edmans, James’ mother, was charged with permitting the production on premises of a class A drug – psilocin. Her claims that she did not know what was going on were also discarded on the day of trial when she changed her plea from not guilty to guilty.

In mitigation, her advocate Ali Rafiti said his client, of Fore Street, Tavistock, was of previous good character, she had been an NHS nurse for all her adult working life and she had admitted she turned a “blind eye” to what her son was doing, but that she was spending long periods looking after a number of grandchildren, only assisting her son with giving him a lift to the nearby postbox.

As a result she was handed a sentence of 20 months imprisonment suspended for two years, with two years supervision and ordered to complete Rehabilitation Activity Requirement up to 20 days and pay a £140 victim surcharge.

In mitigation for James Edmans, his advocate Graeme Wilson said his client was also of good character, had been introduced to cannabis at the age of 12 and had undergone a recent assessment and diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.

He said the psychologist’s report present noted that Edmans’ autism was “significant” and that he had lived his life undiagnosed for 34 years.

He noted that the nature of his autism was that he had a different perspective to life and it meant few friends, isolation from society. Mr Wilson said that Edmans’ autism “should be regarded as a disability” when the judge made his sentencing decision.

He also highlighted a glowing reference from HMP Exeter where Edmans had become a listener for the Samaritans, even becoming the head listener.

The reference remarked that Edmans had made a “big difference in events” at the prison, stating that the 36-year-old had been key to “assisting others who may have otherwise committed suicide”.

Judge Robert Linford noted that Edmans had used “highly sophisticated methods” to avoid detection but observed the reports he had received, the early guilty plea, the character references, his previous good character and the reports about his mental health.

He handed Edmans 81 months – six years and nine months – for the production of the drugs, 81 months for the supply of class A drugs, 81 months for the possession of the class A drugs, eight months for supplying class B drugs and four years for the charge of money laundering which took place between April 2016 and August 2023 – all to run concurrently, resulting in a total sentence of 81 months.

He was told he would serve half before being released on licence.

Judge Linford listed a Proceed of Crime Act hearing that will take place on March 8, 2026.