A man who masterminded the importation and sale of cocaine and heroin worth more than £4m has been jailed for 18 years, after National Crime Agency investigators identified him from secret phone messages.
Heemal Vaid, 49, of Cheam, used EncroChat – an encrypted phone service for criminals – to broker deals, not knowing that in 2020, an international law enforcement team would crack EncroChat’s encryption.
Thousands of unattributed messages exchanged by Vaid under the pseudonym “Starkcake” were passed to the NCA, which led to Operation Venetic – the UK response to the takedown of EncroChat by international colleagues.
Investigators pored through the messages, subsequently identifying Starkcake arranged for 96kg of cocaine, worth £3.6 million, to be imported from Brazil over a month in 2020, and for further amounts of up to 15kg to be imported from the Netherlands every week.
The messages revealed that Starcake was also arranging the supply of 20kg of heroin and 1kg of cocaine in the UK.
Investigators found clues to Starkcake’s real-life identity in his messages, pairing these with cell site and financial data to verify it was Vaid.
One message to Starkcake indicated that criminal cash had been paid into the account of “H Vaid”, which investigators identified corresponded with a transaction on Vaid’s bank account. Officers also identified that Vaid made a payment at a café in Dubai around the time Starkcake told an associate he was in the country.
Investigators gathered cell site data that showed Vaid’s movements correlated with conversations about Starkcake’s whereabouts. In one case, data indicated Vaid was at a river near his then-home after Starkcake told an associate he was going for a riverside walk.
Investigators subsequently arrested Vaid at his home address in April 2024.
The evidence gathered by investigators was so compelling that Vaid pleaded guilty to 12 drug and proceeds of crime charges and a count of conspiracy to blackmail relating to threats he made to a debtor.
