Anthony Carroll Senior

Introduction

Anthony Carroll Senior is a 57-year-old Glaswegian who pleaded guilty at the High Court to directing others — including his four co-accused — to commit money laundering, and was sentenced by Lord Scott to four years and six months’ imprisonment. The offence ran for five months from January to May 2020 and involved transferring, concealing, collecting and storing the proceeds of drug dealing, in particular cocaine and diamorphine (heroin) and cannabis; the sentencing narrative described “a high level of effort, planning and deceit” and “a leadership or organising role, rather than peripheral involvement”. The charge he admitted carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years, and alongside the prison term he received a five-year Serious Crime Prevention Order .

Background Information

The group case concerned the laundering of cash generated by the supply of class A and class B drugs: money was transferred, concealed, collected and stored, and those involved in the drug supply were paid. Carroll Senior was 50 at the time of the offending and had a single previous conviction for a minor road traffic matter, so the court treated him as a first offender. He told the author of the criminal justice report that he became involved during Covid times when he lost his job and needed money to support himself and his family, and that he acted on the direction of his father; the court noted the matter appears to have destroyed his relationship with his father . His four co-accused — his son Anthony Carroll Junior, Ryan Carberry, Marc Cooper and Michael Monaghan — each admitted involvement in serious organised crime for between two and three and a half months, arranging at Carroll Senior’s direction the transfer, concealment, collection and storage of criminal cash and its payment to others, and using encrypted Encrochat devices to conceal their identities, activities and evidence from law enforcement; Carberry and Cooper additionally undertook tasks in the supply of controlled drugs and the counting and storage of drug money .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Admitted directing a five-month money-laundering operation for drug cash; jailed four and a half years.

Lord Scott accepted that Carroll Senior’s report author considered he minimised his role, and noted the significant personal toll his criminal involvement had taken — homelessness, addiction, poor mental health, periods as a psychiatric in-patient and involvement in other offending, with an unconfirmed diagnosis of schizophrenia for which the court had seen no medical report. His alcohol consumption had become problematic following several significant bereavements, and efforts to address an associated drug problem had been unsuccessful; contact with his two children had stopped . Of primary significance for sentence, the judge said, was the scale of the organised criminal enterprise as glimpsed in the very large sums involved and the two-to-five-month periods of involvement, with harm and culpability both high. Only a custodial sentence was appropriate in each case. The court cross-checked against England and Wales guidelines: for a comparable class A supply charge, Carroll Senior’s range would have been nine to twelve years’ custody, and six to nine years for the other four, though those ranges did not directly apply .

Public Reaction and Consequences

Anthony Carroll Senior’s headline sentence was six years’ imprisonment, reduced by 25% for his plea to four years and six months. His son Anthony Carroll Junior and Michael Monaghan each received three years after four-year headline sentences were reduced by a quarter; Ryan Carberry’s headline of four and a half years, elevated for an analogous conviction, became three years and three months; and Marc Cooper, who used the early-plea procedure, saw four years cut by 30% to two years and nine months. All sentences were backdated to 24 August 2026 . The court also imposed Serious Crime Prevention Orders — five years for Carroll Senior and four years for each co-accused — taking effect from their dates of release .

Current Status

Carroll Senior is serving a sentence of four years and six months, reduced from six years for his guilty plea and backdated to 24 August 2026, with a five-year Serious Crime Prevention Order to run from his release. The court observed that his case could have been graver still — a leading role higher up the chain of command, a longer period of involvement, or a record of recent analogous convictions — but that comparisons with drug-supply sentencing were meaningless because the charges were different . No appeal was reported in the published remarks .

Impact on Their Career/Life

A 57-year-old first offender in the court’s eyes, Carroll Senior leaves the case with a conviction for directing serious organised crime, a custodial sentence running into 2027 and beyond, and a five-year SCPO restricting his activities after release — an order the court imposed in each case because of the scale of the enterprise. The sentencing remarks record that his offending cost him his job, his home, his health and the relationship with his own father, and that his adult children’s contact with him has stopped . The Encrochat evidence that underpinned the case — the encrypted communications his co-accused used and which the indictment cited — marked the operation out as one of the organised-crime prosecutions dismantled through that hacked platform .

Sources

• “HMA v Anthony Carroll Senior, Anthony Carroll Junior, Ryan Carberry, Marc Cooper and Michael Monaghan, remarks of Lord Scott” — Judiciary of Scotland, 30 October 2026: source