Bob the French bulldog brings complete drug trafficking ring all the way down to its knees
A picture of a French bulldog has collapsed an drug trafficking ring after a member of the group shared a photo of his dog on an network the group thought was impenetrable
A drug trafficking organised crime ring has been thwarted after a picture of one of the members’ French bulldog, Bob, collapsed the entire operation.
Stefan Baldauf, 64, and Philip Lawson, 63, were part of an organised crime ring that plotted to smuggle more than 70 stones of MDMA from the United Kingdom to Australia.
The group planned to hide the class A drug, also known as ecstasy, in the mechanical arm of a digger which had an estimated street value of £45 million. The operation collapsed due to one very unlikely player, a French Bull Dog named, Bob.
One of the members of the crime ring, Danny Brown, sent a picture of Bob, his French Bulldog, on a network named EncroChat – which the traffickers thought was impenetrable.
Brown’s phone had been hacked by the National Crime Agency, in part of the UK’s biggest organised crime probe and that innocent picture of his dog would cause the entire operation to unravel.
The picture of the dog had Brown and his partner’s phone number on the tag alongside other crucial information that led to the crackdown on the organised crime group.
On Monday Baldauf was ordered to repay £1,007,637 and was jailed to 28 years in prison in December 2022. The offender has three months to come up with the cash or face an extra seven years in jail. The man faces another three years in prison if he is unable to pay £182,476. These funds will go to the treasury and further crime fighting.
Baldauf, Lawson and five other men involved in the criminal operation were jailed for a total of 163 years in prison.
Chris Hill, who led the National Crime Agency investigation, said: “These criminals did not care about the misery and exploitation that the supply of illegal drugs bring to UK and Australian communities.”
“All they cared about was money. So these proceedings are immensely painful to them, hitting them in their pockets and are a crucial way of showing other organised criminals that the consequences do not end with the prison door slamming shut. The NCA continues to do everything possible, working at home and abroad, to protect the public from the threat of illegal drugs supply.”
