A £45 million international drug trafficking plot was smashed after one of the gang revealed crucial evidence by sharing a photo of his dog.
Danny Brown, 55, included in the image the tag of his French Bulldog, named Bob, which had his partner’s phone number on it and was later used to help snare him.
Brown sent the photo anonymously to co-conspirator Stefan Baldauf, 62, using an encrypted phone network as they plotted to smuggle 448 kilos of MDMA to Australia.
But the villains were unaware the EncroChat platform had been hacked by the National Crime Agency and partners as part of Britain’s biggest ever organised crime probe.
EncroChat users’ real names did not appear on messages and criminals used a “handle” which investigators later needed to prove was them.
Brown, who went by the name “throwthedice”, and Baldauf, known as “Boldmove”, also sent accidental selfies – giving investigators more proof.
In one message, Brown sent a photo of his TV which showed his reflection.
Baldauf, of Ealing, west London, shared a picture of a brass door sign in which his face was visible.
Brown, Baldauf and Leon Reilly, 50, were convicted in June at Kingston Crown Court of drug trafficking with three other men.
On Tuesday Brown was jailed for 26 years, Baldauf for 28 and Reilly for 24.
Chris Hill, NCA operations manager, said: “These men thought they were safe on EncroChat but my officers did a superb and painstaking job of building the evidence against them through a mixture of traditional and modern detective skills.
“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.”
Bob was present when his master’s home in Bromley, south east London, was raided in June 2020.
The gang had stuffed the £45 million stash of MDMA in the arms of a mechanical digger, and created a fake auction in an attempt to make shipping the machinery 10,000 miles from Southampton to Brisbane in Australia appear legitimate.
But they rigged it by agreeing a pre-arranged bid with the intended recipients.
The auction provided the OCG a nervous moment when other potential buyers registered their interest in the digger.
Reilly, 50, messaged Brown on EncroChat: “There are six people watching it.”
Brown replied: “F***ing hell, that’s not good is it.”
The trio and their conspirators plotted in late 2019 and early 2020 to send the drugs, which were 77.5% pure, to Australia where MDMA’s street value is much higher than in the UK.
The OCG bought the excavator, a Doosan DX420, for £65,000.
Fellow plotters Tony Borg, 44, of Basildon, Essex, Philip Lawson, 61, of Staines, west London, and Teddy Murray, 59, of Greenwich, south east London, were jailed for 15, 23 and 24 years respectively.
Australian Border Force officers x-rayed the digger, removed the drugs,
sealed the arm and installed a tracker and listening device before letting it move onto its intended destination - an auction house in Sydney.
Two Australian suspects were later arrested by local officers.
