Midlands drug smugglers used furniture removal as cover

A criminal gang has been convicted over the smuggling of drugs with a street value of £135m - under the guise of a furniture removal company.

Nearly two tonnes of cocaine, heroin and ketamine was brought into UK ports by using dummy loads of furniture to hide consignments, police said.

Kingpin Jonathan Arnold, of Sutton Coldfield, admitted four charges of conspiracy to import and supply drugs.

He enjoyed trips to Dubai on profits, filming himself driving a Ferrari.

Det Ch Supt Jenny Skyrme, head of the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: "We can't underestimate the scale and significance of this criminal organisation.

"This is the biggest drugs case that we have ever dealt with as an organisation."

James Jenkins, 25; Humayan Sadiq, 43; and Connor Fletcher, 25, all from the West Midlands, were found guilty for their roles in the drugs ring following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

Jenkins assisted Arnold in helping to arrange drivers and acted as a supervisor for the operation, while Fletcher was employed as a driver, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

The organised crime unit and National Crime Agency (NCA) came across the operation when one of the gang's couriers was stopped in his van and searched by French customs officers who found 63 blocks of cocaine weighing 71kg, along with 99 bags of ketamine weighing 101kg.

The drugs had a UK wholesale value of £2.5m.

A second seizure and the biggest carried out by police was made in the Netherlands in April last year.

Dutch police found up to 1,477kg of cocaine with a street value of about £118m hidden among bananas on a ship which had travelled from Colombia to Vlissingen.

The vessel was allowed to continue its planned journey to Portsmouth without its consignment.

Sadiq had been waiting outside Portsmouth docks for an unauthorised HGV to collect the drugs and then followed the HGV in a car to a motorway services station north of Winchester, the CPS said.

Arnold and others then took over movement of the drugs by road to premises he rented in Staffordshire.

By last June, investigators had linked Fletcher to the smuggling network and he was intercepted after travelling to a town near Amsterdam and collecting 60kg of cocaine.

The drugs were found to be hidden in two secret compartments built into the floor of the lorry when Border Force officers stopped him, police said.

Ms Skyrme said Arnold enjoyed a "lavish lifestyle", driving luxury cars and holidays while giving the impression he was a legitimate businessman running a small furniture removal firm with a turnover of £50,000 a month.

"The reality was that he was arranging tens of millions of pounds' worth of drugs to be imported into the UK from Europe and South America, which would have gone on to cause untold misery and significant harm to communities," she said.

Tim Burton, specialist prosecutor for the CPS, said: "This was a sophisticated criminal operation and the amount of drugs this gang was attempting to import into the country was colossal.

"These drugs were intended to be put into the hands of other crime groups. Had everyone involved in this criminal activity been successful, millions of pounds' worth of drugs could have ended up on the streets of UK towns and cities causing public harm."

The defendants and convictions:

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