Feeling blue: drug dealer’s ‘love of stilton’ leads to his arrest
A drug dealer’s “love of stilton” has been credited for his downfall after police were able to identify him from a photo of his hands holding a block of cheese.
Carl Stewart, 39, was identified after he shared the photo on the encrypted messaging service EncroChat, from which police were able to analyse his fingerprints.
Stewart, of Gem Street, Liverpool, was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison at Liverpool crown court on Friday after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, heroin, MDMA and ketamine, as well as transferring criminal property.
Stewart used EncroChat to supply large amounts of class A and B drugs under the online pseudonym “Toffeeforce”, a reference to the Everton football club.
According to the National Crime Agency, EncroChat was used “exclusively by criminals” to carry out criminal activity including drug and weapons dealing, as well as money laundering. About 60,000 users of EncroChat have been identified worldwide, with about 10,000 of them in the UK.
Stewart is not the first British criminal to be identified from a picture of his hands. In 2010, Stephen Taylor was sentenced to 10 months for handling stolen goods after officers found a photograph on his phone of him holding rare, stolen watches.
