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 A brazen drug dealer - who boasted about his supply over WhatsApp - was arrested in a pioneering police operation after being traced by his fingerprints from a picture. 
 
 Redditch kingpin Elliot Morris was caught after he used the service to offer Class A drugs to users in South Wales. 
 
 In a police first, detectives were able to identify Morris using fingerprint identification taken from a picture sent via the messaging app - the BBC reports. 
 
 Last month, Morris, 28, was sent down for eight-and-a-half years when the image sealed his links to a plot to supply drugs to a town in Wales. 
 
 His mum and dad, Darren and Dominique Morris – both long-term cannabis users – were also locked up. 
 
 Darren Morris, 51, ran a successful business employing almost 25 people. 
 
 The court heard that drugs had brought “utter calamity” to the family. 
 
 Police found a cannabis factory at Darren and Dominique’s home in Mickleton Close, Redditch, last August, Wales Online reported. 
 
 Another was found at a rural log cabin hide-out in Flying Horse Lane, Redditch, where Elliot was arrested alongside his girlfriend Rosaleen Abdel-Salam and a third person, celebrity photographer and DJ Chazino Suban. 
 
 Elliot was also linked to the supply of “huge amounts” of ecstasy when South Wales Police enhanced a mobile phone picture of a hand holding a number of tablets and fingerprint experts identified it as belonging to Elliot Morris. 
 
 Now in an interview with the BBC, Detective Inspector Dean Taylor told how police used technology to smash the supply chain. 
 
 "It was one of those moments, where we were just looking at the picture and one of the officer's said 'there's part of a fingerprint there," he said. 
 
 "We decided to give it a try. I'd never known it be done before, but we asked the forensic unit to have a look at it. 
 
 "It just shows we are always learning and officers should be aware to use technology and look out for different pieces of potential evidence to stay ahead." 
 
 In another first, officers also proved Morris had almost £20,000 hidden in bitcoin accounts – most generated by illegal drug sales. 
 
 In total, cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy worth around £36,000 and around £21,000 in cash, was recovered during the investigation. 
 
 Elliot Morris was sentenced for conspiring to supply cannabis, possessing MDMA with intent and possessing cocaine. 
 
 Darren Morris was jailed for 27 months for conspiring to supply cannabis. 
 
 Alesdair King, defending, said he was a “lifelong” user of the drug. 
 
 Dominique Morris, 44, was jailed for 12 months for producing cannabis and conspiring to supply cannabis. 
 
 Adam Sharp, defending, said his client had been addicted to cannabis for more than 30 years. 
 
 Stefan Weidmann, defending Elliot Morris, said: “Drugs have brought calamity to this family. Utter, utter calamity.” 
 
 The court heard they were involved in a plot to supply drugs to Bridgend in south Wales. 
 
 Three friends, Joe Thomas, Aaron McKay and Michael Rouse, ran the Wales end of the plot, supplying street dealers in the town. 
 
 Roger Griffiths, prosecuting, said there were five journeys between Redditch and Bridgend between April 15 and August 2 last year, involving six kilograms of cannabis. 
 
 Thomas, 25, of Laing Street, Bridgend, was jailed for 27 months for producing cannabis, conspiring to supply cannabis and possessing cocaine. 
 
 McKay, 22, of Pyle Inn Way, Bridgend, received the same sentence for his role in the conspiracy. 
 
 Rouse, 31, of Tairfelin, Wildmill, Bridgend, was jailed for nine months for conspiring to supply cannabis. 
 
 Street dealer Danial Jenkins, also known as Danial Gillard, 27, of Caer Wetral, Kenfig Hill, was jailed for eight months for conspiring to supply cannabis. 
 
 A second, Nathan Burgess, 26, of Pyle Inn Way, Bridgend, was jailed for nine months for conspiring to supply cannabis and possessing a Class C drug. 
 
 Jonathon Scanlon, another street dealer, aged 27, of Willow Close, North Cornelly, was jailed for 30 months for conspiring to supply cannabis and possessing cocaine with intent to supply. 
 
 The police investigation involved automatic number plate recognition, which revealed the drugs were brought into Wales from elsewhere. 
 
 It also used mobile phone analysis, revealing the degree of organisation between the defendants. 
 
 Rosaleeen Abdel-Salam, 25, of Tutnall Lane, Tutnall, near Bromsgrove, was fined £350 for possessing ecstasy and alprazolam. 
 
 Lowri Wynn-Morgan, defending, accepted her client – who has a degree in psychology – was “foolish and naive”. 
 
 Chazino Suban, 28, of Stainsby Avenue, Hockley, was fined £700 for possessing cocaine and MDMA. 
 
 Lee Davies, defending, said his client worked as a celebrity photographer and DJ. 
 
 Kelly Huggins, senior prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in Wales, said: “We had to consider a large amount of material in this case.” 
 
 She added: “We are pleased that these drugs are no longer a danger to the public and have been taken off the streets.” 
 
 Speaking after the hearing, Det Insp Dean Taylor described the investigation as “complex”. 
 
 He said: “This case again reiterates the importance of communities reporting their suspicions to us. 
 
 “The investigation began as the result of local intelligence about Joe Thomas and Aaron McKay, and what initially presented as a small-scale drug-dealing operation by two local men, soon unravelled in to a much larger, sophisticated set-up. 
 
 “It is testament to our officers, and all those involved, that we were able to secure convictions against this gang.” 

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption 'Drugs for sale' message catches man dealing to Bridgend 
 
 A pioneering fingerprint technique used to convict a drugs gang from a WhatsApp message "is the future" of how police approach evidence to catch criminals. 
 
 An image of a man holding ecstasy tablets in his palm was found on the mobile of someone arrested in Bridgend. 
 
 It was sent to South Wales Police's scientific support unit and helped to secure 11 convictions. 
 
 These are believed to be the first convictions in Wales from fingerprints taken from a photograph. 
 
 The unit's Dave Thomas described its use as "groundbreaking" and said officers are now looking more closely at photographs on phones seized for potential evidence. 
 
 He said: "It is an old-fashioned technique [fingerprinting], not new. 
 
 "Ultimately, beyond everything else, we took a phone and looked at everything on it - we knew it had a hand with drugs on it. 
 
 "These guys [the dealers] are using the technology not to get caught and we need to keep up with advancements." 
 
 The photograph came to light after a tip-off drugs were being sold from a house in the Kenfig Hill area of Bridgend. 
 
 Image caption Elliott Morris of Redditch, Worcestershire, was sentenced to eight and a half years for conspiracy to supply cannabis. He headed a family operation with his father Darren getting 27 months and mother, Dominique, 12 months 
 
 It was raided and large quantities of 'gorilla glue' - a type of cannabis - was recovered. 
 
 Mr Thomas praised the officer that spotted a photograph among a stream of WhatsApp messages going back months as potentially carrying significant evidence. 
 
 "It had a number of texts such as 'what do you want to buy?' on it," he said. 
 
 "There was then the photograph of the hand holding pills that seemed like it was sent to potential customers saying 'these are my wares, I'm selling these'. 
 
 "But he was not thinking it showed part of his hand and there was potentially a fingerprint." 
 
 The scientific support unit - a joint venture between the Gwent and south Wales forces, based in Bridgend - was able to scan the image into its system. 
 
 However, there were just parts of the middle and bottom of a finger visible - records only keep the top part. 
 
 This meant the image did not find a match on national databases. 
 
 Image copyright South Wales Police Image caption Drug dealer Elliott Morris sent this photograph out on a Whatsapp message to potential customers in Bridgend 
 
 However, other evidence meant officers had an idea who they believed was behind the drugs operation. 
 
 "While the scale and quality of the photograph proved a challenge, the small bits were enough to prove he was the dealer," added Mr Thomas. 
 
 "It has now opened the floodgates and when there is part of a hand on a photograph, officers are sending them in." 
 
 He believes it is the first time someone's fingerprint has been identified by a photograph in Wales and shows the potential of a forensic unit with a small piece of evidence. 
 
 Mr Thomas pointed to how about 80% of people now have mobile phones and use them to record incidents such as fights and car crashes. 
 
 "We can download and enhance (footage)," he said. 
 
 "These are all advancements in the digital world - they provide lots of questions we need to provide answers for." 
 
 Making greater use of social media messages is just one area being developed. 
 
 "We want to be in a position where there is a burglary at 20:30, we can scan evidence and by 20:45 be waiting at the offender's front door and arrest them arriving home with the swag," he added. 
 
 "That will work through remote transmission - scanning evidence at the scene and sending it back quickly for a match. 
 
 "It's the future. We are not there yet but it could significantly enhance the ability of the local bobbies to arrest people very quickly."
– Fingerprinting is an "old-fashioned technique," says Dave Thomas of the South Wales police. Convicting a drug dealer on the basis of a partial fingerprint from a photo in a WhatsApp message, however, is groundbreaking stuff. The image of a hand holding ecstasy pills was the key evidence in a case that sent 11 members of a drug gang to prison. Thomas says that amid a stream of messages on the phone of a suspect, there was a "photograph of the hand holding pills that seemed like it was sent to potential customers saying 'these are my wares, I'm selling these,'" the BBC reports. The photo was sent to the force's scientific unit and while there was no match on Britain's national fingerprint database, it was enough to link 28-year-old Elliott Morris to the supply chain. He was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison after a raid that seized large quantities of ecstasy, cocaine, and marijuana, the Birmingham Mail reports. Thomas says it was the first conviction in Wales based on a fingerprint taken from a photo—and there are likely to be plenty more. "While the scale and quality of the photograph proved a challenge, the small bits were enough to prove he was the dealer," Thomas says. "It has now opened the floodgates and when there is part of a hand on a photograph, officers are sending them in." (Researchers say even people who don't use drugs might have cocaine in their fingerprints.)