Listen Now: Cracking Social Media

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Lots of people like cheese but most don’t land behind bars because of it. I’m Brian Banmiller on Business.

Carl Stewart is a drug dealer wanted in the English City of Liverpool. He managed to evade police until his love of cheese and social media did him in. In his picture he was holding a small block of creamy Tilton. It was posted to the encrypted messaging service Encrochat. But the service had been cracked by police. So, they took the picture, analyzed his palm and fingerprints and found their man. Carl pled guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, heroin, MDMA and transferring criminal property. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, and not the first to see his criminal enterprise fall this way. Police say around 60,000 users of Encrochat have been identified around the world. Most, guilty of coordinating and planning the supply and distribution of drugs and weapons. So far more than 60 people have been arrested with most of them handed long prison sentences. The world of social media is making it hard for criminals to do their most important job, lay low. Brian Banmiller, CBS News.

About Brian

CBS News Radio national business journalist Brian Banmiller has spent more than 40 years in the news industry, covering business, politics and the economy on television, radio and in print. Currently, his “Banmiller on Business” reports are delivered to an audience of millions nationwide.