French Bulldog’s Cute Photo Leads Investigators To $55M Drug Smuggling Ring
Image via National Crime Agency
In a rare case, man’s best friend sold him out, though man was to blame.
National Crime Agency (NCA) investigators in the UK identified a drug trafficker—and ultimately his entire crime ring—after the culprit, Danny Brown, sent a photo of his French bulldog, named Bob, to a friend.
The accomplices communicated via EncroChat, a chat network used by thousands of criminals in Britain and overseas that tweaked their phones to keep all texts encrypted. Law enforcers cracked down on the app in 2020, and it is now defunct.
The pair had conspired to deliver 387 pounds of MDMA, more commonly known as ecstasy, from England to Australia. The stash was worth £45 million (US$55 million), according to a news release.
Investigators did not know Brown’s identity at first, as he had gone by the pseudonym ‘Throwthedice’ to retain secrecy ont he app.
They received their first lead after zooming in on the seemingly innocuous photo of the puppy. It turns out Bob was wearing a collar with a phone number, which cops later discovered to be the contact of Brown’s girlfriend. This gave them Brown’s whereabouts and led them to the £45 million scheme.
Brown and his co-conspirator, Stefan Baldauf, also incriminated themselves by sending each other photos that unintentionally captured their reflections. In one accidental selfie, Brown revealed his face in the reflection of a television screen, while Baldauf gave away his identity through a glossy brass door sign. The pictures may have looked innocent, but they immediately tied the two to the crime.
Their plan was to hide a humongous supply of ecstasy pills inside the lever arm of a mechanical digger the gang had purchased for around US$90,000. The conspirators tried to mask the shipment of the equipment as an auction deal—little did they know the police were monitoring their transaction while they were chatting on the illicit app.
Curiously, when the excavator reached Australia, customs officers took out the drugs and sent the machinery over to the recipients.
English law enforcers then watched as the Australian dealers searched the equipment over a span of days, continuously texting their UK accomplices that they were not able to locate the drugs.
Bob the pup was present when police arrested Brown in his home in Bromley, London.
“Brown and Baldauf’s accidental selfies and the photo of Bob the dog were the cherry on the cake in proving who was operating those handles,” concluded Chris Hill, operations manager at the agency.
A drug trafficker has been jailed for 26 years after helping investigators smash his own organised crime group by sending a photo of his dog on encrypted communications platform EncroChat showing his partner’s phone number on the dog’s tag.
— National Crime Agency (NCA) (@NCA_UK) December 6, 2022
Full story âž¡ï¸ https://t.co/ujIDYIP8QQ pic.twitter.com/QZIrUksq6Z
The culprits were convicted of drug trafficking with three others by a jury at Kingston Crown Court. Brown, 55, will spend 26 years behind bars, while Baldauf, 62, has been sentenced to 28 years.
[via PetaPixel and MarketWatch, cover image via National Crime Agency]
