A commercial drug dealer who earned more than £1 million from the sale of cocaine and heroin was only required to repay a small portion of that sum. If he doesn’t make the payment, he could spend a year in jail.
Before being apprehended by police who hacked his EncroChat phone, Mark Wainfur, 33, of Newport, sold 15kg of cocaine and 5kg of heroin. The high-level dealer was discovered with images of class A drugs and poses with stacks of cash.
The defendant had been operating his drug trafficking operation in the south Wales region between April 2020 and June 2020 while utilising the anonymous network. However, officers involved in Operation Venetic, which is handled by the Gwent Police, were able to obtain messages and pictures from Wainfur’s phone, which exposed his narcotics operation.
Roger Griffiths, the prosecutor, spoke during the sentencing: “Users of the secure chat service EncroChat, for which a €850 contract was required, were not traceable by law enforcement. Other than texts, calls, and photos, these phones don’t have many common features. Users can communicate with one another using their assigned handles and individual pin numbers. When they get new phones or devices, owners of the devices frequently change the handles.”
During his two-month operation, Wainfur, who went by the alias “Ornatetown,” is thought to have sold around 15.5kg of cocaine and 5kg of heroin. A picture of half a kilogramme of cocaine taken on May 11, 2020, and another picture of £9,500 in cash taken on May 15, 2020, were both found on the defendant’s phone.
