[imagesource: Merseyside Police]

It turns out, sharing a picture of your favourite cheese, despite it being over an encrypted text message, can end with you getting caught out big time.

A prolific British drug dealer probably did not realise that he would be found by police at all, but especially not because of his love of Stilton cheese, of all things.

I mean, cheese is like crack for a lot of us, so I get it, sort of.

The police managed to identify and arrest Carl Stewart in Liverpool, after tracking him down via a picture of him holding his favourite cheesy snack (that picture above), Gizmodo reports.

Stewart used EncroChat, which is an encrypted communications platform, to supply underworld networks with massive amounts of narcotics like heroin, cocaine, MDMA, and ketamine.

Under the handle “Toffeeforce” Stewart made a lot of money for himself until the cheesy tattletale.

The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA), dubbed “Operation Venetic”, had some rather far-reaching law enforcement action that put a few criminals using EncroChat behind bars, although they probably didn’t get caught because of a chunk of Stilton like Stewart.

Okay, so how did the police manage this absolute wizardry?

Well, the police said on Friday that they infiltrated the EncroChat network and used a photo of Stewart’s hand holding his beloved Stilton to visually analyse his palm and fingerprints:

“Carl Stewart was involved in supplying large amounts of class A and B drugs, but was caught out by his love of Stilton cheese, after sharing a picture of a block of it in his hand through EncroChat,” said Detective Inspector Lee Wilkinson, of Merseyside Police.

“His palm and fingerprints were analysed from this picture and it was established they belonged to Stewart.”

Stewart was sentenced to just over 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to supply heroin, cocaine, MDMA, and ketamine, as well as transferring criminal property, police said.

The CEO of EncroChat, Vincent Ramos, was also recently sentenced to nine years in prison in the US after admitting that the messaging app was designed to assist drug traffickers.

[source:gizmodo]