
Drug traffickers nabbed after sending photo of pet French Bulldog ordered to pay $1.4 million
CBSN
Drug traffickers whose entire organized crime ring was brought down by a photo of a French Bulldog were ordered to fork over more than $1.4 million, the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency said.
Stefan Baldauf, 64, and Philip Lawson 63, were drug traffickers nabbed in 2020 as part of Operation Venetic along with other members of their group for smuggling drugs from the United Kingdom to Australia. The traffickers sent 448kg of amphetamine worth about $46 million in an arm of an excavator down under.
The traffickers even rigged an auction to make sure the amphetamine went into the right hands. The drugs, which investigators said was MDMA, was first stored in the heavy equipment in an industrial unit in Grays, Essex, before being shipped to Australia. It took almost three months to arrive in Brisbane, the National Crime Agency said.

A vehicle drove into a crowd of people in the western German city of Mannheim on Monday, according to local media reports, citing witnesses. The Reuters news agency said there was a police operation underway in the middle of the city, and that the incident came as crowds gathered in cities across Germany for parades to mark the Carnival season.