Cocaine dealer who used EncroChat messaging app jailed

A drug dealer who used the encrypted communications platform EncroChat to smuggle large quantities of cocaine into Northern Ireland has been jailed for eight years.

Daryl Patton, 40, from Dorchester Avenue in Newtownabbey, County Antrim, admitted offences, including conspiring to possess cocaine, fraudulently importing the drug and having cocaine with intent to supply it.

He also admitted a charge of possessing criminal property, namely £250,000 in cash.

Sentencing at Londonderry Crown Court on Wednesday, a judge said Patton had been operating on a "commercial scale".

Patton is currently serving a 32-month sentence, handed down in March last year at Belfast Crown Court, after he admitted separate charges of possessing cocaine with intent to supply.

Judge Neil Rafferty added: "The defendant in this case was centrally involved in the organisation, supervision and control of the importation of significant commercial quantities of cocaine."

The court in Derry was told he had committed the offences on dates March and April 2020.

The judge said the Encrochat mobile network was advertised as a highly-encrypted and secure platform, providing a secure means of communication between individuals using the network.

French and Dutch police penetrated the Encrochat network and shared details with international police forces in 2020.

A number of cases are currently being progressed through the courts.

Last year, a self-confessed drug dealer from County Antrim was one of the first to be sentenced in Northern Ireland for offences linked with EncroChat.

Judge Rafferty added: "French police gained access to the network and thereby access to the communications between a very significant number of people worldwide.

"Thereafter, the information captured was geolocated and provided to law enforcement bodies."

The judge said that, in the UK, the National Crime Agency (NCA) had been the central agency which received the material.

"Each Encrochat user had a different username," he said.

"In this case the username attributed to the defendant is 'massive-movers'."

Patton, the court was told, had contacts in Panama, Columbia, Spain, the Netherlands, Ecuador and Venezuela.

One message exchanged between Patton and another EncroChat user referred to the delivery of fifteen bits, or tops, of cocaine at £45,000 each.

The exchange also referred to the bits and tops being collected at junction 17 of the M1 in the Dundalk area in the Republic of Ireland.

In another exchange, a user told Patton that he should buy a cash-counting machine.

Judge Rafferty said a pre-sentence report compiled by a probation officer stated that Patton "has struggled to come to terms" with the harm his offending has caused to others.

Judge Rafferty said the messages showed Patton "fulfilled a command and control capacity to move multi-kilo consignments of cocaine".

"I am satisfied that in this case the defendant's use of the EncroChat network was to facilitate and conceal commercial scale drugs criminality."

In a statement on Wednesday, Detective Inspector Pyper said: "This is a welcome milestone, and a reflection of our ongoing commitment to bring those involved in criminal activity to justice.

"Working with partners, we will continue to disrupt the movements and activities of organised crime groups, who bring nothing but harm to the most vulnerable within our communities."