A Scots police officer who helped nail a sophisticated organised crime gang by wading through tens of thousands of EncroChat messages has won a coveted award. Ministry of Defence detective constable Gary McArthur was tasked with unmasking five gangsters involved in the supply of drugs and laundering more than £7m in June 2020.
The crime-group had cross-border bases operating in Merseyside and Glasgow, all while exploiting two serving Royal Marines based at HMNB Clyde. The duo were thought to be providing MOD vehicles to criminal underworld figures and were suspected of stealing and supplying ammunition.
As part of the operation, DC McArthur embedded himself with Merseyside Police for several months. He said: “We had to read every word of every line of the messages that were sent by the criminals – there were no shortcuts. In total we were looking at 25-30,000 messages; one of the men alone had sent 18,000 messages.
