Drug traffickers caught after posting photo of pet French Bulldog ordered to pay $1.4 million

Drug traffickers whose entire organized crime spree has been reduced to the image of a French Bulldog have been ordered to hand over $1.4 million, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency has said.

Stefan Baldauf, 64, and Philip Lawson 63, were drug traffickers arrested in 2020 as part of Operation Venetic along with other members of their gang for smuggling drugs from the United Kingdom to Australia. Smugglers sent 448kg amphetamine costing about $46 million for the excavator arm below.

Traffickers even rig auctions to make sure the amphetamine gets into the right hands. The drugs, which investigators say is MDMA, were initially stored in heavy machinery at an industrial unit in Grays, Essex, before being shipped to Australia. It took about three months to reach Brisbane, the National Crime Agency said.

However, the plan fell apart when smuggler Danny Brown sent a picture of the French Bulldog, Bob, to Baldauf.

Investigators were able to use the photo – which had an associate’s phone number on its tag – and other methods to find and fight the organized crime group.

“These criminals had no regard for the misery and exploitation that the supply of illegal drugs brings to communities in the UK and Australia,” said Chris Hill, who is leading the NCA investigation.

Baldauf, Brown, Lawson and four other men in the UK were sentenced to a combined 163 years, the National Crime Agency said. Some members will face confiscation charges later this year.