A Luton man who used the name ‘TrustyLord’ on an EncroChat phone was jailed for six and a half years on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, after he drove a £38,000 consignment of cocaine to Leicester.
Fizan Khan, 26, was among a group of conspirators who thought their drug dealing was secret because they were using the EncroChat phones.
They believed their messages were secure and were unaware the network had been hacked by the French police, who had passed details on to the National Crime Agency in the UK.
Prosecutor James Norman told Luton Crown Court that Bedfordshire detectives gathered evidence against Khan, whose EncroChat phone had the user name ‘TrustyLord’.
Officers discovered that he had paid £38,500 for a kilo of the drug and was tracked travelling north up the M1 towards Leicester on May 3, 2020.
Khan, of Beechwood Road, Luton, was convicted after a trial of conspiracy to supply cocaine between April 1, 2020 and June 30, 2020.
References sent to the judge described Khan, who was of previous good character, as a hard-working, caring and good-natured young man who was involved in charitable events. The offence was said to be out of character.
Khan had told a probation officer he was aware of the harm drugs cause and had been addicted to cocaine himself. Jailing him, Judge Lynn Tayton QC said she accepted he had become involved through naivety and immaturity.
But the she went onto say that her view was that he had played a substantial part in the conspiracy.
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