Drug Dealer Jailed After Cheese Picture Analysed for Prints (sky.com) 55
A man has been jailed for 13 years after his fingerprints were analysed from a photo of a block of cheese. Sky News reports: Carl Stewart shared the M&S Stilton picture -- but made the mistake of showing his fingers and palm. He may have thought he was safe because he was using an EncroChat phone, a highly encrypted device used by criminals. However, police cracked the system last year -- leading to the arrest of hundreds of people in the UK suspected of murder, gun smuggling and serious drug trafficking. Sixty-thousand users -- about 10,000 of them in the UK -- have been identified globally as part of Operation Venetic. Stewart, 39, of Gem Street, Liverpool, received a sentence of 13-and-a-half years at Liverpool Crown Court on Friday. [...] Detective Inspector Lee Wilkinson said Stewart had been "caught out by his love of Stilton cheese." "His palm and fingerprints were analysed from this picture and it was established they belonged to [him]," the officer said. Stewart had used the name Toffeeforce to conduct his EncroChat deals.
Hope he doesn't have a meltdown (Score:5, Funny)
As far as stupidity goes, he won the Grand Brie!
PS. I know, now he can grow mold in jail.
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Street-level dealers usually only get 6-24 month in jail in the UK, if that. Suspended sentences are common. You have to be a big player to get a 13 year sentence in the UK.
Re: Performing a valuable service (Score:3)
From the story:
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, heroin, MDMA and ketamine, and to transferring criminal property.
He doesn't sound like a low-level dealer... Remember, this is what he Plead to, he likely was charged with much more and took the 13 1/2 year sentence as the best deal he could get.
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Conspiracy is something someone gets charged with if the prosecutors don't have enough evidence to try them for a real crime. This sad sap bought it, too.
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Yeah just leave this bit out, On 22 June 2020, the Dutch police also discovered a "torture chamber" in a warehouse near the town of Wouwse Plantage about 7.15 km east of Bergen op Zoom. The facility, which was still under construction when discovered, consisted of seven cells made out of sound-proofed shipping containers; torture tools were found including a dentist's chair, hedge cutters, scalpels and pliers. The place was nicknamed by criminals the "treatment room" or the "ebi", in reference to Extra Beve
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First, put down the bong for a few days.
Then, ask yourself the following.
What would a torture chamber accomplish that couldn't be done with a silenced '45 slapped across one's face and then pressed hard into their groin or eye socket?
Also, why go through all the trouble to construct an assembly line of humans who can no longer walk once the information is extracted from them and thus have to be carted away, risking all kinds of exposure - when a body can be dumped much more easily?
I.e. Why would they let an
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As noted in the other reply to you, such lengths are truly unnecessary. Beating you with a $5 wrench [xkcd.com] will be just as effective as a custom designed torture chamber, lower profile, and much, much, cheaper.
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I'm not debating that they exist, but nothing other than the grandparent's fevered imagination suggests they were constructed to extract credentials for crypto wallets.
Book 'em Lou (Score:2)
Fingerprints from a blurry JPEG? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm highly dubious that they extracted biometric fingerprints from that blurry JPEG.
Something smells about the version of this story that's being passed around in the media...
Re:Fingerprints from a blurry JPEG? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless the media is (highly likely) using a purposely down-res'ed photo for storage size.
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It's possible that the fingerprints from the photo may not have been conclusive, but could be sufficient to get a warrant to obtain his prints directly. It's also possible that the police had other information that they withheld to protect an informant, and found this as the excuse to move forward.
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I wouldn't think they'd need a warrant for his fingerprints, it sounds like the possible ID of a human being tied to that account and subsequent investigation of that human being was enough.
The fingerprints in this case led to unmasking, not proof at a scene of a crime.
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We'll, I mean, in the very next sentence they begin to explain that police have cracked the system he was using and that they've arrested other people because of it. Seems to me the cheese photo had nothing to do with any of it.
The tech actually works (Score:2)
Maybe not for that particular picture, but the process was created by DHS agents going after CP suspects [cnn.com]. It's been used successfully to run prints on CP suspects and get them convicted.
Not sure about the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, legalize drugs now. All of them. Treat the hard stuff as a medical condition and give it away for free in gov't run clinics where addicts can get treatment as soon as they come down from their high. Nobody shoots heroin or pops meth for fun. They do it because something serious has gone wrong in their life. It's cheaper to solve their problems than to toss them in jail.
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It's more accurate to say that nobody becomes addicted for fun. Most people who try heroin (or alcohol, to use a more common example) do not become addicted. That's relevant when discussing the laws, since the detriment to society comes mostly from the addiction. Presumably, detriment to society is what the laws are trying to limit.
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The substance itself does, physiologically, the same thing as any opiate painkiller. Most people who get a bottle of codeine after oral surgery or a bad flu do not become addicts.
Heroin use would only be more correlated with addiction because being an addict is a prerequisite to getting it, in a lot of ways. You have to involve yourself with the drug scene because it's not available through other avenues. Many of them nowadays start with legal painkillers, or grey market sources like unwashed poppy pods you
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I'm not sure about heroin. My understanding is is that it's almost instantly addictive. But given the typically involved shooting needles in your arm if you're at that level you've hit a pretty extreme low. Meth is less so, but you also have more time to provide treatment before the damage is irrevocable.
Some people are losers who end up on a downward spiral out of society, but some are also regular people. You might even work with some casual users and wouldn't know it. It's not my bag but I know people who've tried it for fun and were smart enough to get out before they lost control.
By the way it's been studied and it's cheaper to provide treatment than the jail people.
Some time treatment works, sometime jail does. Blanket statements like this are pretty much always wrong.
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Also, legalize drugs now. All of them. Treat the hard stuff as a medical condition and give it away for free in gov't run clinics where addicts can get treatment as soon as they come down from their high. Nobody shoots heroin or pops meth for fun. They do it because something serious has gone wrong in their life. It's cheaper to solve their problems than to toss them in jail.
The US has a huge percentage of self-claimed sadists running the country. They openly and freely admit to this.
They don't put the mentally ill in jail because it is cheap, they do it to torture them for their own pleasure and entertainment.
Your plan only works when the goal is making life better for everyone. Unfortunately this is counter to the goals of far too many people in charge to let happen.
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Nobody shoots heroin or pops meth for fun. They do it because something serious has gone wrong in their life.
I suggest you read White Out by Michael W. Clune. Doing heroin for fun is exactly how he became addicted. It wasn't so fun anymore after the addiction kicked in. That's when the something serious has gone wrong in their life started.
Re: Not sure about the UK (Score:2)
Re: Fingerprints from a blurry JPEG? (Score:2)
I doubt the police were starting from nothing, I suspect based on the cheese and other clues, this man was already a suspect, and even a partial print match to his finger/palm prints on file earned him his day in court.
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Zoom, enhance, enhance more
Re: Fingerprints from a blurry JPEG? (Score:3)
Isn't it possible that his $1200 iPhone whatever took a ludicrous-resolution image of his hand and cheese, but the published picture was down-res'ed to print better?
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That's the web site photo, not the photo that was on the phones.
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It smacks of Parallel Construction...
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Yes, it's called parallel reconstruction, and the ruse only has to be good enough to fool a gullible jury.
Parallel Construction (Score:2)
Re: Fingerprints from a blurry JPEG? (Score:2)
Still the Stilton... (Score:2)
I can't put my finger on why, but (Score:2)
this seems a cheesy story.
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Gouda you to point that out.
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But there are holes in my theory.
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How dairy you ask!
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Damn right, whey out of line.
I bet he wishes he'd acted more Caerphilly (Score:1)
(sorry)
Say Cheese!!! (Score:2)
Imagine getting arrested because of a love of finger food!!!
Stilton is pretty nice though.
So every photo with finger prints? (Score:4, Insightful)
Iâ(TM)m trying to understand this. Why were they looking at these photos? Are they scanning all photos posted to the internet for visible fingerprints? Or were they targeting this user specifically? If they were targeting him for surveillance, then presumably they already knew who had the device? Iâ(TM)m missing something.
Now I know. (Score:2)
Toffeeforce (Score:2)
Looks like he's an Everton supporter.
Inspector Grommit (Score:3)
Behold! (Score:2)
The Power Of Cheese!
Stymied by Stilton (Score:1)