Cucumbers, rugs and cement mixers
Following Britain’s biggest seizure of cocaine, Channel 4 News looks at some of the more obscure drugs busts. Gangs have used rugs, cement mixers and even cucumbers to ply their illegal trade.
‘Drugs in rugs’ gang
In June 2009 five men who attempted to smuggle heroin into the UK inside rugs were jailed for between 10 and 15 years each.
Over 16 kilos of heroin was concealed within straws which had been threaded through 25 rugs imported from Afghanistan.
Analysis by the Forensic Science Service revealed the heroin was 75 per cent pure. It was worth around £750,000, but once it had been cut with other substances and sold, its street value would have been many times more.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) substituted the drugs rugs with dummies, replaced the original packaging, and began a surveillance operation when the gang came to collect the narcotics.
Read more: Record cocaine haul seized in Southampton
‘Cucumber cannabis’ gang
In June 2010 a drug trafficker and members of the two networks he controlled were jailed for a total of 66 years after attempting to distribute nearly four tonnes of cannabis across England.
The cannabis resin, which was imported from Spain concealed in shipments of cucumbers, was distributed from industrial premises in Essex to buyers with connections to Essex, Kent and Manchester.
More than 3.8 tonnes of cannabis resin with a street value in excess of £11m was recovered in total.
It would be enough resin to produce 11 million joints and if laid end to end, they would stretch from Lands End to John o’Groats.
Flooding the streets
In April 2010 a network of career criminals who, according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), were planning to “flood the streets with drugs”, were jailed for a total of 44 years.
Officers said the quantities of drugs involved were so large the gang bought an industrial cement mixer (see left) to bulk up the drugs with cutting agents.
Anthony Spencer, from Coventry, who had been in and out of prison for over 40 years for drugs, firearms, fraud and theft, was head of the 15-strong network.
Police recovered the cement mixer from a caravan in Coventry.
Four buried safes, which could store up to 140 kilos of drugs, were also found – two at Spencer’s home, one at a derelict site and one in the garden of a house in Coventry.
Prisoner’s drugs empire
In July 2009 prisoner George Moon pleaded guilty to running a “cocaine business” from his prison cell.
When Moon’s cell was raided in November 2008 after a four-month investigation, he was found with a mobile phone, a SIM card and a notebook on his bed. The notebook contained the numbers of the other members of organised crime gang and his associate in Panama, as well as information on packages sent from Panama to the UK.
The evidence showed George Moon had used the mobile phone to make hundreds of calls over the four-month period.