CRIME CAPSULE
Dealer jailed after Geotaggers stumble upon heroin stash he hid years before
A DRUG dealer whose stash sat hidden in a dry stone wall “for years” until it was accidentally found by people playing a game was yesterday jailed for three years.
A pair of Geocaching fans were hunting “treasures” hidden on a rarely used rural road in Angus using GPS technology when they found a black rucksack stuffed inside the wall.
Thinking it was the object they had been hunting in the game – in which players use GPS co-ordinates to hunt “caches” hidden and logged online – they opened it up.
But instead of finding the usual notebook and pen to record their find and a trinket often hidden in the cache, they found £24,000 of heroin.
They took the bag to Broughty Ferry police station in Dundee, where forensic analysis linked DNA found on the bags of the drug to Albert Ramsay.
He was arrested and, dumbfounded, told police he “hadn’t sold heroin for years”. Fiscal depute Saima Rasheed told Dundee Sheriff Court that when they opened the bag, “They found it contained a set of digital scales and bags containing a rock like substance.”
She added: “There was 242.6 grams of heroin inside with a maximum value of £24,200.”
Ramsay, 50, from Dundee, pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of diamorphine on August 27, 2016, at Omachie Farm, Kingennie, Angus.
Solicitor advocate Jim Laverty, defending, said: “His recollection about it is somewhat hazy.
“His role in the operation was perhaps at the lower end.
“But it is accepted that any person who becomes involved in the machinery of drugs supply has to accept that unless extraordinary circumstances apply, they will be imprisoned.”