A drug dealer who used the dark web to supply drugs and was paid in cryptocurrency will be required to forfeit his ill-gotten gains to authorities. Simon Barclay, a resident of Huddersfield, was sentenced last year to prison for peddling heroin and cocaine and then mailing them to buyers throughout the UK. The drug dealer received cryptocurrency worth £5.85 million when he was detained, which he subsequently used to build up his wealth.
According to the Proceeds of Crime Act, he has been ordered to repay more than £4.9 million of his cryptocurrency earnings. It’s the biggest seizure of cryptocurrency by West Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit.
Barclay, of Cow Cliffe Road, was deemed to have crypto assets worth £4,921,637 accessible. It has been transformed to sterling in order to fulfil the confiscation order, according to the authorities. Barclay’s benefit amount was calculated to be £7.1 million, with the difference remaining as a debt.
After Barclay’s dark web use was discovered by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit, which focuses on significant organised crime, his activities came to light. Further inquiries traced Barclay’s routine trips to a nearby post office, which resulted in his arrest in November of last year. After admitting possession of Class A and B drugs worth £1.2 million, he was sentenced to prison last June. Additionally, he pleaded guilty to criminal property ownership, which was the cryptocurrency tied to his criminal activities.
Ramona Senior, head of the Yorkshire and Humber regional economic and cyber crime Unit, remarked: “Barclay employed cutting-edge technology to conduct his large-scale drug distribution network. It is ironic, however, that his attempt to remain concealed by utilising the dark web drew our attention to him.”
