Traffickers who tried to smuggle £45m worth of drugs caught after sending photo of dog showing phone number on collar

21 January 2025, 16:03

An organised crime group has been brought down over a picture of a pet dog.

The crime group had planned to send 448kg of amphetamine worth £45m, to Australian accomplices hidden in the arm of an excavator and even rigged an auction to ensure the drugs reached their intended recipients.

However, the plan collapsed after a member of the group sent a picture of his French Bulldog Bob, with his partner’s phone number on its tag, using encrypted communications platform, EncroChat.

Investigators zoomed in on the number and used it, among many other methods, to prove their involvement in the conspiracy.

One of the members also sent an selfie showing his reflection in a brass door sign, investigators said.

The gang, who have already been jailed, have now been told to hand over almost £1.2m.

On Monday, Stephen Baldauf, 64, - who was jailed for 28 years in December 2022 - was ordered to repay £1,007,637.

Baldauf, of Ealing Road, London, has three months to pay or will receive an extra seven years in jail.

Philip Lawson, 63, who designed the drugs hide in the digger and arranged a welder to cut it open and then seal the digger, was sentenced to 23 years.

He was ordered to pay £182,476. He also has three months to pay with failure resulting in the imposition of another three years on his sentence.

The funds will go towards further crime fighting and the Treasury, the NCA said.

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Danny Brown, 57, who was jailed for 26 years, will face a confiscation hearing later in the year.

Another member of the group, William Sartin, 63, of Timberlog Lane, Basildon, Essex.

The excavator was concealed in Sartin’s industrial unit. He was sentenced to 23 years.

Baldauf, Brown, Lawson and four other men in the UK were jailed for 163 years.

There were also two prosecutions by the Australian Federal Police.

'Misery and exploitation'

Chris Hill, who led the NCA 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 for them, hitting them in their pockets and are a crucial way of showing other organised criminals that the consequences do not end when the prison door slams shut.

“The NCA continues to do everything possible, working at home and abroad, to protect the public from the threat of illegal drugs supply.”