
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.

Jerusalem — Israel's renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip is "expanding to crush and clean the area" of militants and to seize "large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel," Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a written statement on Wednesday. The Israeli government has long maintained a buffer zone just inside Gaza along its security fence, which has greatly expanded since the war with Hamas was sparked by the groups Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack.

Zhejiang, China — Smartly dressed, 42-year-old businessman Qian Weiguang gets out of his black Mercedes van, eager to check on the status of operations. He's just driven an hour from his showroom and is keen to show our CBS News team his newest factory — one of three he has in a sprawling industrial area outside the city of Yiwu in China's central Zhejiang province.