An ex-footballer was detained at Manchester Airport after his misdeeds were revealed.Former Tranmere Rovers player ‘fallen by the wayside’A once-promising footballer whose career “fell by the wayside” was arrested at Manchester Airport after deciding to pursue a different career path. Sean Calvert was a young midfielder on Tranmere Rovers’ books.
However, the 25-year-old was later identified as EncroChat user “Sound Dill” and found to be sourcing kilo quantities of heroin, cocaine, and cannabis over the encrypted communications network. These substances were then divided into smaller quantities for sale on the streets.
Calvert appeared in Liverpool Crown Court by videolink yesterday (September 18) after his offences were discovered, according to the Liverpool Echo. Calvert used the moniker “SoundDill” after his connections called him “Calv” after EncroChat was infiltrated by law enforcement agents in 2020, according to the court.
Prosecutor Nicola Daley told how Calvert, of Fairclough Road in Huyton, also provided the residences and birth dates of close family members and mentioned his time playing for AFC Liverpool and in China. Meanwhile, the account was used to send a snapshot of a hand, which allowed scientists to identify him using his fingerprints.
He had 96 other handles “covering a broad geographical reach” on his device and had communicated with 41 of them over the three-month period of data obtained by the attack. Calvert was discovered to have “worked alongside” fellow user “EmuVest” in obtaining kilogramme quantities of class A drugs, which were then broken down into smaller amounts and sold on the street using graft phones controlled on their behalf by others.
This allowed them to make roughly £5,000 per kilogramme of profit, while he pointed out that they might “make more money if they ran the phone lines themselves.” His conversations revealed that he was involved in the distribution of 23kg of cocaine, 3kg of heroin, and 110kg of cannabis, as well as the handling of £220,150 in dirty money. Calvert was arrested on July 18, this year, at Manchester Airport.
At the time, he was discovered to be in possession of a Google phone with the programme “VLHAD” installed on it, which Ms Daley described as “another encrypted platform, similar to EncroChat.” The defendant had previously been convicted of violence and a public order crime in 2020.
Calvert came via Tranmere’s development system, where he was regarded as a “fluent ball-playing midfielder with an eye for goal,” and later played for Welsh second-tier team Flint Town United. Meanwhile, Michael Scholes, the defence attorney, mentioned his client had previously trained “young, underprivileged children in Inner Mongolia.”
“Clearly, this is a young man who has jumped in at the deep end,” he added. He is fully aware of what fate has in store for him. It is heartbreaking to see the death of a young man who was clearly not only well thought of by others, but also a young man with family obligations and an extraordinarily skilled amateur football player who intended to pursue a career in the NFL.
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