Ferrari-posing cocaine dealer 'Knockoutguy' exposed after posting own Facebook profile on EncroChat

A cocaine dealer was exposed after posting details of his own Facebook page in a shadowy network used by underworld criminals. Like others using EncroChat, Farhan Alam thought he was ‘untouchable’ when he sent messages to other criminals to arrange drug deals.

But when law enforcement cracked the heavily encrypted communications network, detectives found a wealth of evidence to prove that Alam had been involved in crime. Despite offending under a pseudonym, Alam, 39, from Oldham, had posted incriminating information which tied him to the ‘Knockoutguy’ username, which had operated on the system.

He posted his mobile number in one message and shared the postcode to his home in another. His EncroChat phone and his personal number co-located on several occasions, Manchester Crown Court heard.

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And Alam also posted details of his Facebook page within an EncroChat conversation. "On April 29, 2020, Knockoutguy actually sent a Facebook page in a screenshot to another handle,” prosecutor Neil Fryman said. “Enquiries revealed that Facebook profile was the defendant. You can clearly see in that picture, it's a picture of a male sat in the driver's seat of a red Ferrari with his arm covering his face.”

Mr Fryman said that the following day, an associate asked Alam whether he was 'coming in a Ferrari'. Locking Alam up for seven years, Judge Hilary Manley noted that the admissions made the username ‘very easily attributable’ to him.

She told him: “For a period of about five months you bought and sold drugs of class A and B as part of a conspiracy. You were in effect a wholesale drug dealer. You were buying and selling on a