Drug lord who made £2.5 million a month and plotted rival’s murder from Dubai is given 32 years in prison
A drug lord who plotted the murder of a gangland rival from his luxury base in Dubai has been jailed for at least 32 years after being brought down by EncroChat messages.
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James Harding, 34, and his accomplice Jayes Kharouti, 39, ran a cocaine empire worth more than £100 million.
The court heard that Harding and his accomplices had planned to transport a tonne of cocaine over a ten-week period.
The pair were found responsible for 50 importations of cocaine into the UK, totalling 1000kg.
The pair had also tried to hire and arm a hitman to take out a rival drug supplier, sending messages on the encrypted messaging app EncroChat with plans for the “full M” (meaning murder).
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Harding, posing as a luxury watch trader, had been planning the murder remotely from his luxury villa in Al Barari in Dubai, where he’d been frequenting 5-star hotels and driving Lamborghinis and Bugattis.
The plot was uncovered by Scotland Yard, after they apprehended Harding’s phone and found the messages - alongside selfies he’d sent of himself and his lavish lifestyle to other criminal contacts.
The phone data was sent to French investigators, who cracked the encryption code for the service and relayed the messages’ content back to the UK.
The pair were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, and Harding received additional charges for conspiracy to transport cocaine.
Kharouti, alongside three other members of the kingpin’s group, had already admitted charges of conspiracy to transport cocaine alongside other drug offences.
In the messages, Harding went by the nickname “Thetopsking”, and Kharouti went by “Besttops” and “Topsybricks”.
The court heard that the plot to kill a rival supplier had arisen due to a discussion about robbing another drug courier’s import - what the group referred to as a “cryp robbery”.
Messages were revealed of the group planning to rob the courier, which then escalated into plans to kill the courier.
The messages discussed details of how and when the murder should take place, as well as an offer of £100,000 from Kharouti to a potential hitman
The proposed hitman was arrested in June of 2020, without the drug syndicate’s knowledge.
Harding, with previous convictions of drug transportation and documents fraud, was arrested and extradited at Geneva airport in December 2021.
After he arrived in England in May 2022, Harding was arrested by counter terrorist specialist firearms officers at a London airport.
In a video of the arrest, a police officer quips: “Mr Harding, welcome back”, to which Mr Harding replies “Oh, thanks very much”.
Kharouti was extradited from Turkey to the UK in June last year.
Detective Inspector Driss Hayoukane, who oversaw the Met's EncroChat operation, has said: 'Thanks to the tenacity and commitment from Met officers, over 500 criminals have been successfully convicted since the EncroChat platform was cracked back in 2020, leading to well over 5,000 years of sentences being handed down to those involved.”
“This represents our commitment to combating illegal drug supply, as well as the serious violence that comes with it.”
“Our work doesn't stop here - we will continue to pursue those who profit from bringing harm to our communities and will continue to deliver our mission of reducing crime.”
EncroChat is a communications system which allowed users to communicate using an end-to-end encrypted messaging application, operating in a similar way to WhatsApp, the court heard.
Messages sent using EncroChat would self-delete after seven days, but this set time could be changed by the user of the device, while all the data on the device could be wiped both by the user or remotely by the reseller.
Jurors heard the National Crime Agency (NCA) had assessed EncroChat as being “exclusively used” by criminals.