Kyle Chase, the owner of Liverpool club Spray Shop, has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison on drug trafficking charges.
Chase, also known as Kyle Muldoon and his DJ name Eldon, was operating on EncroChat under the aliases "ThreeFatLadies" and "FourFatLadies", discovered after contacts called him "Fat Kyle" and by his DJ moniker, Liverpool Crown Court found, as reported by Liverpool Echo. He admitted to conspiracy to supply heroin, cocaine, ketamine and cannabis on the Europe-based encrypted messenger that was infiltrated by French, British and Dutch authorities in early 2020.
When sentencing Chase to 12 years and eight months in prison, he said: "It is clear that you were dealing in multi-kilo quantities of cocaine, heroin, cannabis and ketamine. You conducted your business with multiple other EncroChat users and drug dealers... You have clearly developed a skill set in the music industry and you were enjoying a degree of success. It seems you had found your calling and were working hard in a legitimate business — no doubt that has all now been taken away because of the sentence I am about to impose."
Chase has been convicted six times previously for 16 offences dating back to a 2005 charge for conspiracy to commit robbery.
Chase opened Spray Shop in February 2023 with the intention of "creat[ing] a cultural legacy that this city can be proud of". It's hosted the likes of Voigtmann, KILIMANJARO, Rossko, Shonky, Archie Hamilton, Richy Ahmed and more.
Liverpool Echo reports receiving a tip from a source that Spray Shop quietly closed in the spring "after the owner was arrested for EncroChat offences". The last promoted events on the venue's Instagram page date back to 5th April and the bio states, "CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE".