Two men jailed for 'dark web' £1m Aberdeen ecstasy operation

Two men have been jailed for their involvement in a sophisticated ecstasy supply operation from an Aberdeen flat.

Customers placed orders via a website and paid in cryptocurrency.

Scott Roddie, 29, was jailed for six years and three months, and Connor Holmes, 24, was jailed for two years and three months.

Police said the convictions for using the postal system and dark web to distribute class A drugs were the first of their kind in Scotland.

The operation unravelled after Border Force officers intercepted two packages containing 8kg (18lbs) of the drug, worth more than £680,000.

National Crime Agency officers then found more than £730,000 of the drug in Thomson Street in Aberdeen.

The packages intercepted at an international parcel hub in Coventry were addressed to Holmes.

Officers learned that Roddie was responsible for the delivery of packages to the flat which Holmes would sign for.

Roddie earlier admitted being concerned in the supply of ecstasy between February and December in 2018.

Holmes admitted being concerned in the supply of the drug between October and December that year.

Judge Lord Boyd of Duncansby told Roddie: "You involved yourself in a criminal scheme which brought large amounts of MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, into Aberdeen which you then distributed."

At the High Court in Edinburgh, he added: "There is no doubt this was a very significant drug operation."

Defence counsel David Moggach, for Roddie, said the electrician's labourer had been gambling and using drugs, and ran into debt.

He said: "It was put to him he should receive drugs, store them and distribute them as directed. Essentially, he was to set up a safe house and distribution centre."

Mr Moggach said: "He certainly was not the brains behind this organisation, far from it."

Frances Connor, counsel for Holmes, said: "He said that in the course of the fairly short period of his involvement, which was just short of two months, he did become suspicious that whatever was in these packages was illegal.

"He did not question it and he knows he should have questioned it once he had suspicions."

Det Insp Tom Gillan, of the Organised Crime Partnership (Scotland), said: "From the address in Aberdeen, Holmes and Roddie were able to receive and distribute illicit drugs, with a street value of around £1.3m on an international scale.

"The men made use of the dark web and cryptocurrencies to support their criminal market place and used the UK postal system to distribute the drugs.

"This was a blatant attempt to protect their criminal enterprise and frustrate international law enforcement, which ultimately failed."