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A cheesy downfall: U.K. drug dealer’s Stilton selfie leads to conviction amid international sting

LIVERPOOL, England — A British man’s affinity for cheese led to his arrest and, ultimately, his conviction last week as part of an international operation that has implicated tens of thousands of alleged criminals worldwide.

Carl Stewart, 39, of Liverpool, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to supply cocaine, conspiracy to supply heroin, conspiracy to supply MDMA, conspiracy to supply ketamine and transferring criminal property. According to Merseyside police officials, he was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison.

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Stewart was nabbed in Operation Venetic, the biggest law enforcement operation in U.K. history. Britain’s National Crime Agency has been working since 2016 with law enforcement agencies around the globe to target EncroChat, described as one of the largest providers of encrypted communications.

EncroChat provided potential criminals with encrypted, modified Android cellphones on which they could send secure private messages, text messages and photos to one another. Users could also wipe the photo data remotely if in a bind.

“The sole use was for coordinating and planning the distribution of illicit commodities, money laundering and plotting to kill rival criminals,” the NCA said last year.

Vice reported that in May 2020, some EncroChat users began noticing that the “wipe” feature on their phones was not working. An EncroChat associate told Vice’s Motherboard a couple of months later that in looking at one of the devices, it was determined that malware had somehow been installed on the phone.

The device had been hacked. EncroChat shut itself down to protect its users, but the company was too late.

According to the NCA, police in France and the Netherlands had infiltrated the platform. The data that was harvested, which identified about 60,000 EncroChat users globally, was shared among various countries through Interpol.

That’s where Stewart, known on EncroChat as “Toffeeforce,” came into the picture. Stewart, like thousands of others on the platform, used EncroChat to conduct his business supplying large amounts of drugs.

He also happened to use his EncroChat device to snap a photo of a small block of Stilton cheese, which he appeared to be buying in a Marks & Spencer store. He then shared the image on the encrypted platform — not knowing that authorities had gained access to it.

“His palm and fingerprints were analyzed from this picture, and it was established they belonged to Stewart,” Merseyside Detective Inspector Lee Wilkinson said in a statement.

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Wilkinson said Stewart was “caught out by his love of Stilton cheese.” The detective inspector said the convicted drug dealer’s substantial sentence should serve as a “stark warning” to anyone involved in the crime circuit.

“Merseyside Police, along with law enforcement agencies across the world, will leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of those people who think they are above the law, and we will continue to target anyone involved in serious organized crime to keep this positive momentum going,” Wilkinson said.

The EncroChat servers have been permanently shut down, the NCA said.


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