They live with glamorous partners in luxury villas on the Portuguese Algarve – three college friends making millions selling canisters of nitrous oxide to Britain.
But here it can be sold on as the party drug laughing gas, or ‘hippy crack’, abuse of which has killed hundreds of young Britons.
Our investigation traced the three to their poolsides and exposes how the consequences of their legitimate business have inadvertently swollen a flood of the drug into the UK.
Nitrous oxide, which gives abusers a hallucinogenic high when inhaled, has legal uses in catering and for medical purposes.
And for Dutch former club promoters Luciano De Vries, Jesse Van Der Heide and Nick Houwen it has generated sales of £93 million, and £21million in profit, in 2023 alone.
Their firm, Ramdon, exports the drug legally in two-litre canisters branded ‘FastGas’ to UK suppliers in the catering business. These suppliers sell on the canisters to consumers.
But last night a heartbroken mother who lost her daughter to an unknown brand of nitrous oxide warned it is too easy to buy online to use as a drug.
Sharon Cook, 55, whose daughter Ellen, 24, was killed by the drug in 2023, demanded the Government scrutinise the availability online.
Dutch former club promoter Luciano De Vries is a co-owner in a business that exports nitrous oxide, aka ‘hippy crack’, legally in two-litre canisters branded ‘FastGas’ to UK suppliers in the catering business. These suppliers sell on the canisters to consumers
Sharon Cook lost her student daughter, Ellen (pictured), to an unknown brand of nitrous oxide
She said: ‘They need to look at the loophole that allows this stuff to be sold for so-called cooking purposes. It is being abused and has to be stopped. Knowing there are kids able to buy it online in bulk is just horrendous.’
The FastGas trio started selling nitrous oxide while working as club promoters in Spain’s Costa Brava resorts in 2012.
Former law student Mr De Vries, told Dutch university newspaper Ukrant in 2018 that laughing gas is ‘a multi-million-dollar business’. He added: ‘We are growing by 50 per cent a month… We’re really turning over a huge amount.’
Their business has expanded rapidly and The Mail on Sunday examined dozens of records from a complex network of holding companies registered across Poland, Malta and Mauritius to track them down to their lavish properties near Faro, Portugal.
Laughing gas, which is transferred to balloons and inhaled, was criminalised in the UK
in 2023. Since then, the FastGas brand has only shipped wholesale to sellers in the UK and does not sell direct to consumers. It can be used in products such as whipping cream and foam cocktails.
But The Mail on Sunday was able to buy FastGas from several UK websites boasting next-day delivery, just by ticking a box stating that our purchase was for catering use.
One seller Muhammad Iftikhar, 31, who runs his laughing gas business from above a fried chicken shop in Romford, east London, says on his website that the gas ‘can create sensations of euphoria, giddiness and uncontrolled laughter’.
A young woman openly using laughing gas on Bournemouth beach
Empty canisters of the gas dumped on a street in Bristol
Speaking to an undercover reporter who posed as someone buying laughing gas ‘for a party’ without her parents finding out, Mr Iftikhar said he could arrange the delivery so she could pick it up from a collection point.
He did not respond to The Mail on Sunday’s repeated requests for comment.
There is concern that some sellers of FastGas could be making counterfeit canisters and copying its label, due to the popularity of the brand.
Doctors have warned of an ‘epidemic’ of serious complications from abusers. And some NHS trusts have reported a spike in hospitalisations in recent years.
Between 2001 and 2020 there were 716 deaths related to hippy crack in England and Wales – an average of 36 a year. Ms Cook’s daughter Ellen, a student from Buckinghamshire, died after inhaling three large canisters a day.
In the weeks before her death, she could not walk or go to the toilet after burning her legs with a canister and becoming bedbound.
Connor Wilton, 28, of Derbyshire, was hospitalised for three months in 2022 after suffering irreparable nerve damage from inhaling nearly 500 balloons of laughing gas each weekend – a habit he had started as a teenager.
His body was starved of oxygen by the drug and he now has to use a wheelchair.
Nineteen-year-old Thomas Johnson was jailed for more than nine years for causing the deaths of three friends, passengers in a car he crashed at 100mph while high on hippy crack
Hippy crack has also been linked to dangerous driving cases.
Thomas Johnson, 19, was jailed for more than nine years in December 2024 for causing the deaths of three teenage friends, passengers in a car he crashed at 100mph in Oxfordshire while high on hippy crack.
It is unknown whether any of these deaths were specifically linked to FastGas.
Photos taken after the last four Notting Hill carnivals in London show skips full of nitrous oxide containers, almost all appearing to bear the FastGas label, although it is not clear if these were the company’s genuine product.
By untangling layers of foreign companies, The Mail on Sunday has been able to establish that the ultimate beneficiaries for FastGas are the trio of Dutch friends who met at university.
Majority shareholder Mr De Vries calls himself a ‘serial entrepreneur’ who is ‘passionate about philanthropy’. He lives with his girlfriend on a sprawling estate just outside Tavira in the eastern Algarve.
When this newspaper visited late last year, major extensions were being added. He has sweeping views over citrus and olive orchards and a farm where he keeps pigs, cows and chickens.
Friend Jesse Van Der Heide, who also holds shares in the brand, owns a palatial, three-floor villa with a large swimming pool on a hillside in Loule.
Jesse Van Der Heide, who also holds shares in FastGas, owns a palatial, three-floor villa with a large swimming pool on a hillside in the Algarve
When The Mail on Sunday visited, neighbours said he was away on honeymoon. They added that they had no idea how Mr Van Der Heide had made his fortune.
His website suggests he has interests ‘related to product development in the catering industry’.
Further west along the coast the third business partner, Nick Houwen, lives in a newly built condo in an affluent suburb of Albufeira which looks on to a huge pool encircled by palm trees. He too has a flashy website which nods to his successes in ‘the catering industry’ and in ‘industrial gases’.
Last night a Ramdon spokesman said: ‘Our products are only sold to verified and authorised commercial clients (not private individuals). Our products and sales comply with all relevant local laws. We have a rigorous compliance framework around all of our products.
‘We condemn improper use of our products and have comprehensive procedures to ensure that they are not mis-sold. We are also aware of the existence of illegal counterfeits designed to closely imitate our products.
‘We are continually working to prevent this, which includes
significant investment in specific branding elements to make the production of counterfeits more difficult, as well as taking legal action, where possible, against those responsible.’
