Plot to smuggle £45m worth of drugs to Australia smashed after gangster accidentally sent photo of his dog

A plot to smuggle £45 million worth of drugs to Australia was smashed after a gangster accidentally sent a photo of his dog on an encrypted network.

The picture, spotted on Encron by National Crime Agency (NCA) investigators, showed Danny Brown’s partner’s phone number on his pet dog’s tag.

Brown’s gang had stuffed the huge stash of MDMA in the arms of a mechanical digger, and created a fake auction to make shipping the machinery 10,000 miles from Southampton to Brisbane in Australia appear legitimate.

But their attempt to reap the higher market value of drugs down under was foiled.

Brown, 55, unintentionally sabotaged the intricate plot by sending a photo of his pet dog Bob on encrypted messaging service EncroChat, clearly showing his partner’s personal information.

Under the handle “throwthedice”, Brown sent the pooch picture to co-conspirator Stefan Baldauf - known as “boldmove” on Encro - as they hatched a plan to send 448 kilos of MDMA to Australia, worth £45 million.

The pair incriminated themselves further by both sending accidental selfies on the messaging service.

Brown, of Bromley, south east London, sent a photo of a television with his reflection in it to his crime group chat.

And Baldauf, 62 of Ealing, west London, sent a picture of a brass door sign unintentionally capturing his face in the reflection.

NCA investigators zoomed in on the dog tag and the unintentional selfies for proof Brown and Baldauf were involved in the foiled major drugs operation.

The gang of men aged 44 to 62 set up a rigged auction of a digger with the 77.5 percent pure drugs stuffed in its arm, and then ship it to Australia the market price is higher.

They organised an online auction for the 40-tonne Doosan DX420 digger to make its arrival in Australia look legitimate, after they bought it for 75,000 euros.

It was agreed the intended digger-recipients would successfully bid on the farm machinery.

The mission was almost ruined when other buyers registered interest in the digger.

An OCG member Leon Reilly, 50, texted Brown on EncroChat: “There are six people watching it.”

Brown responded: “F****ing hell, that’s not good is it.”

After buying the digger in Leeds, Reilly’s company Mizen Equipment moved it to an industrial estate in Grays, Essex.

Accomplice Tony Borg, 44, of Basildon, Essex, picked up the digger at the Grays industrial unit and began working on it.

Philip Lawson, of Staines-Upon-Thames, Surrey, designed the secret hiding place, arranging a welder to cut open the arm of the digger and seal the Class As behind a lead lining.

The 61-year-old bought a powerful welding machine and organised for a sign-making company to make some stickers to cover the markings after it was repainted.

It is believed drugs were hidden inside the digger on December 19, 2020.

In the days running up to and following the hide the OCG gang’s Encro phones were in frequent contact, sometimes using the same cell sites.

After they were stowed Mizen Equipment paid a haulage firm £1,600 to transport the digger to Southampton Docks, where it was dispatched to Australia.

It took from January 24 to March 13 last year to arrive in Brisbane.

On arrival Australian Border Force officers x-rayed the digger, removed the drugs and re-sealed the arm – adding in a tracker and listening device.

Officers then let it move onto its intended destination, an auction house in Sydney.

In May 2021 the digger was moved to a small site west of Sydney, and Lawson forwarded the Australian gang a drawn diagram showing exactly where the drugs were hidden and how the digger should be opened.

On May 18 two Australian members of the gang spent two days hunting for the drugs before they realised something was wrong.

The EncroChat messages revealed the six UK OCG men launched their own investigation, even holding meetings to find out who stole their drugs.

A month after the failed digger search, on June 15 Brown and Baldauf were arrested together in Putney, south west London.

Brown had his Encro phone on him, and Baldauf had left his iPhone in his car containing messages telling people his Encro handle was “Boldmove.”

After being charged the offenders repeatedly tried to get the case kicked out of court by arguing EncroChat evidence was inadmissible, but they were convicted by a jury nonetheless.

Digger-designer Lawson was sentenced to 23 years, Borg to 15, and another member to 24.

Brown, Baldauf and Reilly were convicted of drug trafficking in June at Kingston Crown Court. Brown was jailed for 26 years, Baldauf for 28 and Reilly for 24.

EncroChat was taken down in 2020. Under Operation Venetic the NCA received messages the offenders sent thinking EncroChat was safe from the eyes of global law enforcement.

The accidental selfies allowed officers to deduce whose supposedly-anonymous handle was whose.

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.

“But the OCG went to enormous lengths, even rigging an auction, in a bid to transfer the drugs to Australian conspirators.

“The NCA works with partners at home and abroad to protect the public from the dangers of Class A drugs which wreak so much misery on communities in the UK.”