Dad Bragged He Earned Same Salary As Heart Surgeon And Pilot By Dealing Drugs

A dad who boasted about earning as much as a heart surgeon and pilot through drug dealing has been jailed for 14 years.

William Swann, from Maghull, Merseyside, used EncroChat to source firearms while also trafficking large amounts of heroin, cocaine and cannabis, the proceeds of which he planned to launder through his friend’s bouncy castle business.

Swann, 39, boasted that he was raking in £60,000 per year, which he described as a “pilot’s wages or a heart surgeon’s wages”. Pretty sure pilots and heart surgeons are making a little more than that, certainly the experienced ones. Come to think of it, couldn’t a legit bouncy castle business make £60,000 a year?

Swann, who went under the alias “OctoRain” on Encrochat, was arrested in January this year. He once sent a selfie over EnroChat – which Merseyside Police said played a role in identifying him. Though in fairness, he’d have been busted eventually either way:

He has two previous convictions for three unrelated offences, his last appearance coming for driving offences in 2017.

His lawyer, Damian Nolan, made an attempt to mitigate by referencing a letter written by Swann. He told the court: “It shows recognition of his wrongdoing and the impact that it has had on those who use drugs, the impact it has had on his family and, really, recognition by him that, while he will serve the sentence, the stark and sad reality is that his immediate family will serve the sentence as well. His letter does not express one iota of self-pity.

“It is about the recognition of the impact that it is going to have on others. He has two young children. It is incomprehensible to him that the only way they will see their father is to go through the indignity of the prison system. That is not how one maintains a relationship with your children. He has to bear the brunt of that and the responsibility for it.

“The defendant is committed to putting this series of events behind him so that, when he is released, there will not be any return to prison for him. He knew the scope of the business and what it was about, namely making money. He did desist from offending and has not returned to it. These offences are now five years of age. While he had been at liberty prior to his arrest, he had known that the inevitable knock would be coming to hold him to account.

“There is genuine remorse. There is ample evidence that he has taken determined steps to turn his life around, thereby evidencing that this is to be the only time that he is to be sentenced for this type of offending. It has been a salutary lesson for him.”

Swann pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin, cocaine, cannabis and cannabis resin; conspiracy to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation of cannabis; money laundering; and intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence. He was given 14 years.

Sentencing, Judge Simon Medland KC said: “You are to be sentenced for your involvement in very serious drug offending. I have no doubt that, when you were undertaking it, you were corrupted by the thought that your activities were beyond the reach of the law, because it was thought that EncroChat was uncrackable. The police authorities proved that decisively wrong.

“As I have sadly had to say on so many occasions, drugs, and especially class A drugs, destroy people’s lives. They ruin people’s mental and physical health and wellbeing. They corrode society. They break up families. You yourselves will be in custody for years to come.

“Because of the terrible effect that drugs have on people and society in general, it is necessary that the courts impose very substantial sentences, even on men like you in your late 30s who have no previous convictions which aggravate your positions, who are spoken of in glowing terms and who have undertaken excellent conduct in prison on remand. Outside of this offending, you, generally speaking, were an ordinary, pretty decent man, yet you were attracted by what was seen to be a very glamourous and lucrative occupation.”

And so, 14 years means he will realistically be out in 6, and in the meantime, someone else will step into his shoes and continue to sell the drugs that he would have sold. Meanwhile, all those pilots and heart surgeons he compared himself to go to work tomorrow and collect their £60,000+ salaries without having to worry about laundering it through their mate’s bouncy castle business. Crime doesn’t always pay.

For the British mum who avoided jail after smuggling 20kg of cannabis from Bangkok to Germany, click HERE. How’d she managed that?