Dealer given £3.6m worth of drugs at M1 services

A drug dealer who was caught collecting class A drugs worth £3.6m from a lorry driver at motorway services has been jailed for nearly nine years.

Ahmed Omar, 29, of Leytonstone, east London, met Rudi Claes, 62, while in his car at Toddington Services on the M1 in Bedfordshire.

The lorry driver loaded two boxes from the trailer into the car which was then searched by police from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) who found 36kg [five and a half stone] of cocaine.

In total, 156kg [24.5 stone] of drugs were seized from the car and lorry which Bedfordshire Police estimated had a potential value of £19.2m.

In June, Claes was jailed for 20 years for his role in smuggling cocaine into the UK having travelled from Steenokkerzeel in Belgium.

The drugs were stowed among empty pharmaceutical insulation boxes, police said.

Investigators found Omar, of Newcomen Road, had been involved with drug dealing since 2021 and both men were part of an international drug-dealing network.

Omar was jailed for eight years and nine months at Luton Crown Court.

Det Insp Dean Trollope, from ERSOU’s Regional Organised Crime Unit said: "Omar was part of an organised criminal group and played his part in bringing large quantities of drugs into our communities, causing misery and pain.

"Thanks to the hard work of our specialist officers and investigators, both Omar and Claes will be spending a considerable amount of time behind bars."

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