Meet the teenage drug lord who made £3.8m from his childhood bedroom (2024)

WITH a clean-shaven baby face, Maximilian Schmidt is an unlikely drug dealer

But by the age of 19, the German teenager was running a £3.8 million pound drug empire - from his childhood bedroom.

Schmidt sold hundreds of kilos of cocaine, meth and marijuana through his website Shiny Flakes - using the national postal service to deliver them.

In new Netflix documentary Shiny Flakes: The Teenage Drug Lord, he speaks for the first time about the Amazon-style business that led to his 2015 arrest.

Now serving a seven year sentence, Schmidt is suspected of hiding millions from police in secret Bitcoin wallets.

In the trailer for the documentary, he explains his simple business model that made his millions - and inspired the hit Netflix drama, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast).

"You paid upfront, then it was processed and shipped," he says. "Instead of shoes, you got drugs."

Dark web sales of 914kg

When most teenagers were holed up in their rooms playing FIFA or Call Of Duty, Max Schmidt was building a lucrative drug delivery service at the Leipzig home he shared with his mother.

The entrepreneurial youngster - described as “emotionally immature” and “unpopular at school” - dropped out of an chef’s apprenticeship before setting up his operation on the dark web, in December 2013, using the innocent sounding name Shiny Flakes.

Over the next 14 months he sold 914kg of ecstasy, marijuana, LSD, meth and cocaine, using local post offices to ship the parcels.

Punters paid in Bitcoin and he disguised his revenue as income from a web-design business.

Schmidt admits he was initially frightened his criminal activity would land him in hot water.

"In the beginning, I was afraid and thought, 'Is it like in the movies? You do this, and then the police come?'" he says.

Slip ups lead police to door

Schmidt eventually came to the attention of the police because of series of slip ups.

In 2014, he got so co*cky he gave an interview to Vice, a popular online magazine, which confirmed he lived in Germany.

He boasted his online store sold an "exclusive selection of pills," but said he used statistical analysis of "customers and buying habits" to maximise sales.

Soon after that, he put the incorrect postage on a package and when it was returned to the post office it was opened, and drugs found inside.

When the same thing happened a number of times police began monitoring the post offices to see if it was the same sender.

He consistently used the same post office, taking a taxi which he ordered on a mobile phone he only used for that purpose.

On some of his transactions, he also failed to use the software which hid his identity.

After watching his movements for a while, police used the Shiny Flakes website to put in an order - before intercepting 40kg of A-class drugs.

They also witnessed Max handing drugs to a courier in a car park before storming his house in February 2015 to arrest him.

More than a dozen cell phones and more than two dozen SIM cards were discovered in his room. Shelves lining the room were neatly stacked with a variety of drugs.

'Grumpy, stubborn and lazy'

Schmidt, then 20, confessed to dealing drugs on a large scale in September 2015, but the German courts decided to try him as a minor.

During the trial his mother described him as “undiscerning, grumpy, stubborn and lazy”. It was revealed he had been on medication for 10 years and had therapy for an unknown condition, assumed to be related to autism.

For this reason, experts said he "has not understood" the "emotional impact of his actions" and was lacking "an emotional compass".

They added that he did not interact well socially and had "delayed emotional development."

Schmidt was sentenced to seven years behind bars.

“This computer stuff may make a lot of things easier, but it [online sale] is just as bad as dealing on the street," said Judge Norbert Göbel.

Incredibly, while police were able to seize some of his ill-gotten gains, it’s suspected he might still have millions stashed away in two Bitcoin wallets they were unable to open.

Schmidt’s lawyer, Stefan Constabel, claims the wallets are empty but Judge Göbel was far from convinced, saying: "There must be something inside those uncrackable wallets.”

Due for release next year, Schmidt may still have some secrets up his sleeve.

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Shiny Flakes: The Teenage Drug Years is on Netflix from Tuesday August 3