FIVE students who trafficked drugs via the dark web while at university have been jailed for a total of 85 years.

The gang, inspired by chemistry teacher Walter White in US TV hit Breaking Bad, set up an empire supplying, importing and exporting ecstasy and LSD.

10 Gang leader Basil Assaf was handed a 25 years and five months prison sentence after Credit: PA:Press Association

10 The group of undergraduates underwent a 'Breaking Bad' style selling of drugs on the dark web site Silk Road Credit: PA:Press Association

They begun selling drugs on Silk Road online marketplace from May 2011.

The gang manged to sell £800,000 of drugs worldwide in Bitcoin before being snared by the FBI in 2013.

At today’s Bitcoin prices, the Manchester University students could have made £34billion.

Gang leader Basil Assaf boasted how getting paid in that currency would help his crew escape detection - and bragged their profits would soar even if they got jailed.

10 Jaikishen Patel was jailed for 11 years and two months at Manchester Crown Court Credit: PA:Press Association

10 Elliot Hyams was handed an 11 years and three months at Manchester Crown Court Credit: PA:Press Association

10 LSD found in a shoe box at a flat in Manchester, where the gang are thought to have made £800,000 in Bitcoins - worth £34billion at today's rate Credit: PA:Press Association

They would advertise the drugs with photographs before sending them in the post.

He told one confidante: “More than happy to do time for all of this. If bitcoin continues going up while we’re inside there’s a chance we’ll come out with millions. No one could find out how many bitcoins accumulated and are stored elsewhere.”

He set up the gang's account on an underworld marketplace which ran on the dark web for more than two-and-a-half years before they were caught in October 2013.

A photograph taken on a holiday to the Bahamas in 2012 included an image of a baseball cap which had 'Billionaire Boys Club' written on it.

And an image of a flask recovered from Roden's phone featured a picture of the TV character Walter White from Breaking Bad - a “running joke” between the group.

10 The gang shipped the Class A drugs worldwide from America to New Zeland Credit: PA:Press Association

10 A bag of cash seized at the flat in Manchester where the gang pooled their knowledge to make the likes of LSD and ecstasy Credit: PA:Press Association

10 James Roden, 25, Basil Assaf, 26, and Joshua Morgan, 28, on holiday at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas in July 2012 Credit: PA:Press Association

10 Joshua Morgan was given a seven years and two months sentence for his involvement Credit: PA:Press Association

10 James Roden was jailed for 12 years at Manchester Crown Court Credit: PA:Press Association

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The electronic currency was never traced, it was said.

Assaf, 26, an engineering student, was jailed for 25 years, five months.

The others, aged from 25 to 28, got from seven years, two months to 20 years, three months at Manchester crown court.

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