£11m worth of class A drugs found in Grimsby port
A man has been jailed for 14 years for attempting to smuggle class A drugs
A man has been jailed for 14 years following the discovery of £11m worth of class A drugs hidden in an air compressor.
Ryan King, 38, of Tollerton Road, West Derby, Liverpool, was part of an organised crime group that tried to smuggle the drugs – 72kg of cocaine and 51kg of heroin – into the UK in March 2022.
National Crime Agency officers began an investigation after colleagues from Border Force discovered the drugs concealed in the machinery at Killingholme Port near Grimsby in Lincolnshire after arriving from the Hook of Holland in an unmanned trailer.
King’s DNA was found on the drugs packages and a tracker inside the concealment.
He was arrested at Liverpool John Lennon Airport in December 2022 when he returned from Alicante, and was charged with attempting to smuggle class A drugs.
King was due to go on trial today (Tuesday 5 Aug) at Hull Crown Court but changed his plea to guilty.
NCA operations manager Carl Barrass said: “This was excellent work by our Border Force partners to detect a large amount of class A drugs concealed in a piece of machinery.
“The loss of those drugs and the loss of King damages the crime group behind the smuggling attempt.
“They have lost a huge amount of money which cannot now be ploughed back into further offending, and the drug seizure means they will not be pushed around our communities causing misery.”