Those who sought binge-worthy entertainment over the weekend were treated to a surprise with the foreign series How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast).
While the show contains subtitles, the engaging story and the addition of a 30-minute runtime for each episode, made for a brisk binge for many viewers.
The show also contains interviews with the character actors making the experience feel like a documentary within a television show. This has led many to wonder if the events of How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) is based on a true story.
The answer might surprise many Netflix viewers. Here is everything to know about what inspired the story for How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast).
What is How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) about?
The show revolves around Moritz, a troubled teen who is trying to win back his girlfriend Lisa. When the show begins, Lisa has been away in a foreign exchange program in America for an entire year.
When she returns, her relationship with Moritz is not what it once was. Moritz is also highly aware that something about his longtime girlfriend seems out of character. Soon after, Lisa tells him that she wants to take a break.
Moritz is also highly proficient in computer coding and hacking, and when he breaks into her social media account, he realizes Lisa has a newfound interest in MDMA (Ecstacy).
This leads him to collaborate with his wheelchairbound friend Lenny to establish a website on the “Darkweb” to sell Ecstacy at an impressive rate.
Is How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) real?
Surprisingly, the series is in fact inspired by real-life events. Just like the show, the circumstances of the true story also took place in Germany, specifically the city of Leipzig. The core subject of the story remains the same with a lot of external add-ons to increase the drama.
The real-life person who caused this internet stir is named Maximillian S. and he did run drugs through the “Dark Web” from the bedroom of a parent’s house.
He also used crypto-currency and bitcoin as ways to help consumers make these purchases anonymously just like in the show. Even more impressive, he made a fortune while doing so.
Very similar to the rise and fall of Silk Road which was like a black market for the web.
However, most of the backdrop of the show is fabricated. While Maximillian had people assist in his dirty work — including a mentor named RedBull — there was no wheelchairbound friend named Lenny or a girlfriend named Lisa he was trying to win back.
From the way it sounds, Maximillian was actually a loner while executing this scheme.
According to showrunner Philipp Kassbohrer, the reason for embellishing some of the details surrounding Maximillian S. was “because when we dug into his true story we found it was very short and boring,”
The infamous website also went by the name Shiny Flakes instead of My Drugs, but just like in the series, Maximillian was able to publish it on the Dark Web as well as the clear web.
Since the show is only in its first season it’s hard to say whether or not How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) will follow the same conclusion as the real-life story.
It seems the showrunners are exercising more liberties to make the show more like Breaking Bad rather than a work of nonfiction. However, Maximilian S. was sentenced to seven years in prison back in 2015 for his online crimes. So, the true story did not have a happy ending,
All that being said, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) is definitely worth the watch and can be streamed in its entirety on Netflix right now.