A British drug dealer’s prolific life of crime was brought to a screeching halt by a mortal weakness — his love for Stilton cheese.
Carl Stewart, 39, of Gem Street, Liverpool, has been sentenced 13 years and six months in prison after he pleaded guilty to supply cocaine, heroin, MDMA and ketamine, as well as transferring criminal property, Merseyside police said.
He had shared an image of his hand holding a fat, creamy block of M&S mature blue Stilton cheese on the encrypted messaging service EncroChat, from which police analysed his fingerprints.
He used EncroChat to supply large shipments of narcotics to underworld networks under the handle “Toffeeforce,” named after the Everton football club.
“Carl Stewart was involved in supplying large amounts of class A and B drugs, but was caught out by his love of Stilton cheese, after sharing a picture of a block of it in his hand through encrochat,” Detective Inspector Lee Wilkinson said.
According to the police, EncroChat was used about 10,00 users only in the UK and all of them were found involved in criminal activities involving drugs and weapons and money laundering. A total of 60,000 users of Encrochat have been identified worldwide.
Inspector Wilkinson said in a statement that so far 60 people have been arrested in connection to drug trafficking or firearms offences under their national Operation Venetic, which came about after law enforcement officials in Europe found “Encrochat” service was used by criminals.
“Stewart was handed a substantial sentence of 13 years and six months, and this should serve as a stark warning to anyone involved in this criminality that there are serious consequences,” he said
This is not the first case in the UK to be cracked with the help of identification of fingerprints from pictures.
In 2010, Stephen Taylor from Greater Manchester was convicted after his fingerprints were matched by zooming in on the photograph on his phone of him holding rare, stolen watches.
