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Daily Record
Daily Record
National
Gordon Currie & Sarah Vesty

Scots drug dealer hunted for £800k ‘profits’ says cocaine haul 'massively over-valued' by cops

A drug dealer who is being hunted for £800,000 that prosecutors claim he has made is accusing police of massively over-valuing his cocaine.

Bitcoin crook Dale Pearson, 29, said the police had valued his cocaine at ten times what it was actually worth in court papers seeking to claw back his drug profits.

Counsel for Pearson, Mark Moir, said the case would also have to be put off because surveyors had made a glaring mistake when valuing Pearson's home.

Mr Moir told Dundee Sheriff Court on Thursday: "This has had a long and somewhat sorry history.

“I have had contact with the Proceeds of Crime unit and provided quite a bit of documentation.

"One relates to a survey of his home by a major surveyor. For reasons that are not clear they failed to value a fairly substantial annexe to the property.

"As a result the valuation coming back is less than the price he paid for the property in 2016. Not surprisingly, the Crown said they would not accept that valuation.

"There is also a dispute over the wholesale value of a quarter kilo of cocaine. For reasons that are not clear it has been put down at ten times the normal value."

Mr Moir said that if the issues could be resolved it was hoped that Pearson and the Crown could agree a figure for him to pay back.

A specialist forensic accountant has already been called in to analyse Pearson's claim that he made a fortune trading in Bitcoin.

The case called at Dundee Sheriff Court (PA)

Dale Pearson is alleged to have made more than three quarters of a million pounds from criminal activity and the cash is at the centre of a Proceeds of Crime battle.

Pearson is fighting the action and claims that he made huge profits by successfully trading in the highly volatile cryptocurrency market.

Pearson, who was jailed for five years for drug running, had previously been charged with setting up a web design company to front a large-scale fraud.

He was said to have scammed a £250,000 mortgage before "concealing, disguising, converting and transferring" cash and Bitcoin amounting to £789,046.64 over the course of six years.

The money laundering charges, said to be connected to serious and organised crime, were dropped when Pearson admitted dealing cocaine and ketamine.

In 2018, Pearson faced a 12-charge indictment in court alleging he moved vast sums of money around and used a fraudulent mortgage to buy a luxury six-bedroom property in Dundee.

Prosecutors alleged he laundered cash through various bank accounts and converted £25,900.91 into the online cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Pearson was alleged to have transferred £57,015.71 out of the country to banks and businesses in Pakistan, China, Dubai and Hong Kong.

In a complex scheme Pearson was alleged to have set up a business and website in the name of Pearson Web Design to front the fraud.

The Crown alleged that Pearson Web Design did not undertake the business of web design and that no VAT returns were ever filed, and that the business was "a front to explain income."

One of the charges alleged that Pearson "did conceal, disguise, convert and transfer criminal property" - namely "sums of money and bitcoins" amounting to £789,046.64 between1 September 2011 and 31 August 2017.

He was eventually convicted of drug dealing after Parcelforce staff found bags of white powder stuffed inside a board game being sent to a Dundee address.

The drugs were recovered in 2015 and found to have a potential street value of nearly £90,000. He also admitted having other drugs and was jailed for five years.

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