A 64-year-old man from West Ealing who was jailed for 28 years for his part in a gang who tried to smuggle 210 bags of MDMA into Australia with an estimated street value of £44m has been ordered to repay £1 million.
Stefan Baldauf of Midhurst Road along with five other men were sentenced at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court on 6 December 2022 for their involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle almost half a tonne of MDMA – also known as ecstasy – into Australia in the arm of an excavator machine.
On 20 January 2025, Baldauf was ordered to repay £1,007,637 and has been given three months to pay or will receive an extra seven years in jail.
Another man, 65-year-old Philip Lawson who designed the drugs hide in the digger and arranged a welder to cut it open and then seal the digger, was ordered to pay £182,476. He also has three months to pay or be given another three years in prison to add to his existing 23 years sentence.
Between June 2019 and June 2020, Baldauf along with another man Danny Brown, oversaw the operation to export the Class A controlled drugs concealed in the lead-lined arm of an excavator to be sent to Australia.
The UK-based conspirators arranged the shipment and the sale at auction of the excavator to the ultimate purchasers of the drugs in Australia. The gang used encrypted Encrochat mobile phones to communicate with.
Unknown to the group, Australian custom authorities had discovered the drugs, removed them from the excavator and sent the machine on empty.
Struggling to find the MDMA, the men in Australia responded with a picture of a hollow arm and told Brown the machine was empty. Brown and his accomplices provided even more detailed explanations of where the drugs were concealed, but soon realised the bags of MDMA had been taken.
Chris Hill who led the National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation said: “These criminals did not care about the misery and exploitation that the supply of illegal drugs bring to UK and Australian communities. All they cared about was money.”
Mr Hill added: “So these proceedings are immensely painful for them, hitting them in their pockets and are a crucial way of showing other organised criminals that the consequences do not end when the prison door slams shut. The NCA continues to do everything possible, working at home and abroad, to protect the public from the threat of illegal drugs supply.”
The prosecution used the messages exchanged to demonstrate how many defendants were aware MDMA had been concealed in the excavator.
Demonstrating the use of the EncroChat phones was crucial to proving the case against Brown and Baldauf. The prosecution were able to link Brown to his Encrochat phone through a picture of his French Bulldog, ‘Bob’, which he sent to one of the other gang members. The dog had the same number on his collar that he had been sending messages on.
Baldauf sent a photo of his location which accidentally captured his own reflection on his way to meet Brown which was used to prove he had control of the device.
In June 2020, Brown and Baldauf were arrested by NCA officers, and further investigation led to the remaining defendants’ arrests in the following months.
