Gym instructor jailednews over role in cocaine ring

HE WAS SNARED AFTER USING ENCRYPTED DEVICE

A COCAINE dealer was snared after using an expensive encrypted device designed for underworld activities to send personal messages.

Gym instructor Kyle Atcheson was one of many to be caught out when French police busted the Encrochat network, which had been used by organised crime groups to conduct their activities with what they thought was impunity.

But he made it easy for them to identify him as the user “Tank Master” because he had sent messages using the device about his wife and children and had even sent his postcode on it.

Now the dad-of-two, never in trouble before, has been jailed for more than seven years at Newcastle Crown Court.

The court heard Atcheson, 31, of Rushton Way, Washington, was in contact with other members of the organised crime group, including John Gates, who went by the name “No Dramas” and was previously jailed for more than nine years.

When French police got access to a server used to store Encrochat messages, they revealed damning texts showing Atcheson was involved in the purchase and supply of drugs, mainly cocaine. But he had also used the expensive device for personal reasons.

Paul Cross, prosecuting, said: “The defendant sent his postcode and personal messages that could only relate to him. He complained his wife had got him locked up and that he had been in hospital with his child. There were also links between the phone and his ordinary phone.”

He was being supplied kilos and half kilos by Gates and others and was then selling the drugs to street dealers. The total amount of cocaine that he could be proven to be involved with was around 3.25 kilos, worth around £141,000.

Atcheson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine and was jailed for 85 months. Recorder Mark Giuliani told him: “Those with whom you are intimately involved speak very highly of you and you have been a good father to your two children.

“However you willingly engaged in buying cocaine to sell on to street dealers. It’s clear from the Encrochat network you were using the network to buy and sell drugs. For some reason you were using the Encrochat phone to make personal calls as a result of which it was easy for the authorities to identify you. That shows a lack of sophistication on your part.”

He added: “You must realise cocaine is a serious drug. Cocaine usage and supply undermines the very fabric of this democracy.

“It encourages people to engage in using class A drugs, which is dangerous and causes addiction which leads to crime and it funds organised criminal gangs who make vast profits from this and to protect their profits they engage in criminal activity. You involved yourself willingly in that operation.”

Jeremy Barton, defending, said Atcheson had worked as a gym instructor and has a family.

Kyle Atcheson has been jailed