Devon drug dealer caught by his own selfie

Richard Edmunds, a 25-year-old from Barnstaple in Devon has admitted drugs charges at Exeter Crown Court. It possibly wasn't the toughest investigation that officers have ever carried out, because when they searched his property, as well as 20 pots of cannabis plants, they found a selfie of Edmunds posing in front of his cannabis farm - along with a number of mobile phones which still stored messages relating to the sale of drugs.

The Exeter Express and Echo reported that Edmunds had operated the farm in the spare room with his housemate at the time, Joshua Langmed, a 25-year old from Torrington in Devon.

According to the North Devon Journal, both worked as aerospace engineers, and both admitted possession of cannabis with intent to supply. At the time of the raid they found £2,300 as well as £818 of ecstasy, which was for Edmunds' own use.
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Their lawyer revealed that they had since turned their back on drugs, and realised the harm they had caused. They were both given suspended sentences.

Caught by selfie

This isn't the first time that a criminal has unwittingly supplied evidence against themselves with an unwise selfie.

By far the most common version of this is when criminals take selfies on stolen gadgets - which are uploaded to the owner's iCloud or posted onto their social media, so they have an image of the person who has stolen their goods.

In January this year, for example, two thieves from Houston in Texas took several items from an unlocked car - including an iPad and $5,000 in cash. They celebrated in their local Burger King, where they took a number of selfies featuring their horde on the stolen tablet. The victim found the selfies on iCloud, posted them on reddit, and received identification from someone who had been at school with one of the thieves. Police arrested them immediately.

However, there are more unusual ways to be caught out by a selfie. In March police in Sheffield searched a man after he crashed a stolen car. They found a phone featuring him holding a sawn-off shotgun, so he was prosecuted for possession of a prohibited weapon - and jailed for six years.

In May last year police in Kentucky questioned a man about a break-in at a local market. The thief had been wearing a mask and gloves, so hadn't left any clues at the scene. However, when police examined the suspect's phone, they found a selfie of him in the mask and gloves just before the robbery - which helped secure a conviction.

And back in 2013, two teenage girls in Sweden took a selfie of themselves in balaclavas, brandishing a knife. They then robbed a burger restaurant, and after they were tracked back home by a sniffer dog, they found a bag of money and a phone with the selfie on it.

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