Smugglers hid £8m of cocaine in foie gras

Four men who imported a haul of cocaine with a street value of about £8m have been jailed.

Jean-Pierre Labelle, 48, Tanvir Hussain, 46, Michael Keating, 56, and his brother Matthew Keating, 49, were all sentenced on Friday at Hove Crown Court.

The drugs were hidden in foie gras and duck breasts and entered the port of Newhaven, East Sussex, in November 2019 in a transit van.

Mark Ruff, National Crime Agency (NCA) senior officer, said: "The cover load of foie gras and duck breast is highly unusual and Border Force colleagues did a superb job in seeing through it."

Officers discovered 97 packages of the drug, each weighing about 1kg, in the van which was travelling from Dieppe in France.

Michael Keating, of Springwell Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex, was sentenced to 24 years for importing cocaine.

He organised the import, sourced the drugs through international connections and used the encrypted communications platform EncroChat to plan his drug runs, the NCA said.

During a search of his home, officers said they had seized more than £50,000 cash.

Labelle, of Ashey Road, Ryde, Isle of Wight, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for importing cocaine, which he admitted in October 2023.

Hussain, of Cressex Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for importing cocaine.

The pair had bought the van which was used to smuggle the drugs, said the NCA.

The Keating brothers had also conspired to import 80kg of ketamine, according to the NCA.

Matthew Keating, of High Street, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison for conspiracy to import Class B drugs.

James Satterly, 55, of Kings Lane, Cookham, in Maidenhead, Berkshire, was charged with importing class A drugs in November 2019 but was found not guilty on 16 February 2024.

The NCA said they would continue to work "at home and abroad to right the threat" of drugs.

"The Class A drugs trade fuels violence and misery at every step of its way to the UK," added Mr Ruff.

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