Prison for £9.5million drug smuggling gang (From Brentwood Weekly News): "GANG has been jailed for smuggling £9.5million worth of cannabis into the country.
A dozen men were jailed for a total of 64 years and eight months for a conspiracy to import two huge shipments of the drug, hidden in boxes of cucumbers in the back of lorries from Spain.
They were all arrested during an undercover operation by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency last summer.
The first wave of arrests were made as they attempted to process nearly two tonnes of cannabis, with a street value of £4.5milion, at the Convoys Commercials industrial yard, in Baker Street, Orsett, on June 27 last year.
Then, just a fortnight later on July 12, undercover officers watched other members of the gang unload another two tonnes, worth an estimated £5million, from a lorry in Hounslow, West London.
Judge Alan Saggerson, sitting at Basildon Crown Court, said it had been a “sophisticated operation” which would have netted “significant financial rewards”."
Read more »
A dozen men were jailed for a total of 64 years and eight months for a conspiracy to import two huge shipments of the drug, hidden in boxes of cucumbers in the back of lorries from Spain.
They were all arrested during an undercover operation by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency last summer.
The first wave of arrests were made as they attempted to process nearly two tonnes of cannabis, with a street value of £4.5milion, at the Convoys Commercials industrial yard, in Baker Street, Orsett, on June 27 last year.
Then, just a fortnight later on July 12, undercover officers watched other members of the gang unload another two tonnes, worth an estimated £5million, from a lorry in Hounslow, West London.
Judge Alan Saggerson, sitting at Basildon Crown Court, said it had been a “sophisticated operation” which would have netted “significant financial rewards”."