Masked knife dealer poses in a sick Instagram post with one of the hundreds of machetes he sold through the app
A MASKED knife dealer posed in a sick Instagram post with one of the hundreds of machetes he sold through the app.
Stefan Petrescu, 23, shared a series of posts where he advertised knives, which were flogged to violent criminals.
In one snap he posed in a balaclava with a massive knife in a sheath, writing: "The first and last of these tings."
He showed off an arsenal of blades including a samurai sword and included the message "shout me" for potential buyers.
Details of Petrescu's conviction were shared by a police chief at the Police Superintendents' Association conference.
Stefan Clayman, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) lead for knife crime, said some tech giants are "willfully blind" to illicit sales on their apps.
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The Met Police Commander revealed that Petrescu had even joked his knives were used in last month's national riots.
The dealer, of Totton, Hants, admitted the sales across the New Forest area last week at Southampton Crown Court.
Petrescu pleaded guilty to one count of marketing combat knife by selling and two counts of possession of offensive weapons in a private place. He will be sentenced next month.
Another dealer, who is unnamed and going through the courts, bought 261 knives and sold them to gang members across the UK.
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One of the buyers is on bail for rape, delegates were told on Tuesday.
Commander Clayman said: "I want to talk to you about the online threat, which is, I make no apologies for calling it a threat, because it is.
"The best people to police the online space are these online companies. Because if an algorithm can expose you to it, the algorithm should be able to take that risk away.
"How do we tackle the biggest threat, which is the online threat? You have the online safety bill, which is okay, but doesn't quite go far enough as far as knives are concerned.
"We have spoken to the global companies, and some of them feel there's no problem here, and I would suggest they need to look again or they're being willfully blind to it."
One of the issues in sales of knives on apps like Instagram is there is no age verification process, it was heard.
Cmdr Clayman added: "The real risk comes on the third party resellers. So these are individuals who will buy the bulk buys from the official online retailer, stock up and then advertise them on the social media platforms.
"One case hasn't gone through trial. I am not providing his name. Over 260 knives were purchased.
"He was selling the knives to gang members, people involved in county lines and drug lines, and people involved in violence, rape, pretty much didn't really care who sold to.
"So young people are being shown these online marketplaces, day in, day out, and this is the sort of thing that they'll see, but we've got countless examples of how this is being utilised."
A spokesman for Meta, the firm which owns Instagram, said: “We don't allow the promotion and sale of weapons on our platform and we remove this content when we find it.
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“Earlier this year we met with other large tech companies, the Home Office, Ofcom and the Chief Officer for knife crime to understand how we can work together to tackle this issue.
“We have also agreed to join the anti-knife crime coalition launched by the government and Idris Elba this week.”
