This is the dramatic moment a Birmingham drug and gun dealer was arrested after police uncovered his encrypted messages bragging about massive drug deals and access to military-grade firearms.
Asrar Rafiq, 35, has been sentenced to 18 years and six months in prison following a major international crackdown on the EncroChat network — an encrypted platform once believed to be untraceable, and used by organized crime groups across Europe.
Rafiq, known on EncroChat by the alias “Wisehorse,” used the secure app to boast about hundreds of thousands of pounds in drug money and to advertise access to deadly weapons, including AK-47s and Uzis. He arranged deals involving multi-kilo quantities of heroin and cocaine.
He had been under police radar before. In 2014, Rafiq was among a dozen individuals handed a gang injunction for his involvement in a Bordesley Green gang. But instead of stopping, he became more sophisticated — using 13 different phone numbers and avoiding detection while continuing his criminal activities, even seen on CCTV using phones at a gym.
Rafiq’s downfall came in 2020 after EncroChat was compromised in a joint operation by French and Dutch authorities, with support from the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA). Once the app was cracked, investigators accessed messages from thousands of users, monitoring criminal plots in real time.
In June 2020, armed officers arrested Rafiq at a property in Aston, Birmingham. Despite initial claims of being unfairly targeted due to past associations, he later pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including supplying 28 kilograms of Class A drugs and conspiring to traffic firearms and ammunition.
On May 8, 2025, Birmingham Crown Court sentenced him based on evidence that he trafficked large volumes of heroin and cocaine over just three months.
