WIREDGOV

100 years for £117m drug gang

News Release issued by the COI News Distribution Service on 23 December 2010

Six drug traffickers who used legitimate business service centres as a front for their illegal trade have been sentenced to 102 years in prison. Judge David Aubrey QC estimated the street value of the drugs they trafficked at £117m.

The group is believed to have been the UK distribution arm of an international network which attempted to import around 22 tonnes of Class A and B drugs to the UK between February 2007 and April 2009. They used a number of tactics to keep their activity hidden, including:

* Adopting multiple company identities, including the fraudulent use of real company names and logos
* Contracting business service centres to act as messaging and collection points, unwittingly receiving and forwarding packages of cocaine and cannabis on their behalf
* Employing legitimate courier companies to carry out collections and deliveries
* Spreading their activity across a number of different locations
* Using pseudonyms, pay as you go mobiles, and cash payments

The existence of the gang came to light in November 2008 after staff at a business service centre in Cheltenham grew suspicious of a number of packages which had been delivered to them and called Gloucestershire Police. Officers discovered 40 kilos of cocaine and contacted SOCA which launched an investigation.

Links were soon identified between several police drug seizures in the UK and abroad which till then had been investigated separately. Arrests were carried out nation-wide on 16 March 2010 with assistance from Greater Manchester, Surrey, Hampshire and Cleveland Police forces.

Three of the gang - Paul Hewett, Karla Reeves, and Wayne Reed - had their sentences reduced by a third because of early guilty pleas but even so received sentences of 20 years, 16 years and 131/2 years respectively. Glen Cornick had his sentence reduced by a fifth for pleading guilty at a later date and was sentenced to 91/2 years. Michael Pollard and Trevor Holland, both of whom went to trial, were sentenced to 23 years and 20 years. Ian Hockerday was sentenced to 12 months for money laundering.

As part of its work with specific business sectors, SOCA has issued alerts to companies providing business facilities and to courier companies, warning them of the signs that their services are being exploited by criminal groups.

Photographs of the case can be downloaded at
www.soca.gov.uk/news/images-and-audio

Notes for Editors

1. Defendants' details:

* Trevor Holland of Horwich, Bolton, 22/04/78. Arrested 16 March 2010 in Bolton. Sentenced to 20 years.
* Michael Pollard of Walkden, Manchester, 29/09/63. Arrested 16 March 2010 in Manchester. Sentenced to 23 years.
* Paul Hewett of Lower Froyle, Hampshire,18/07/57. Arrested 16 March 2010 in Hampshire, pleaded guilty on 26 August. Sentenced to 20 years.
* Karla Reeves of Grimsby, Humberside, 27/12/83. Arrested 16 March 2010 in Grimsby, pleaded guilty on 26 August. Sentenced to 16 years.
* Wayne Reed of Hartlepool, 24/02/85. Arrested 16 March 2010 in Hartlepool, pleaded guilty on 26 August. Sentenced to 131/2 years.
* Glen Cornick of Javea, nr Alicante, Spain, 14/09/72. Arrested 29 July 2010 on a European Arrest Warrant in Javea, Spain, and returned to UK on 11 August 2010. Pleaded guilty on 4 October. Sentenced to 91/2 years.
* Ian Hockerday of Ash Vale, Surrey, 14/12/57. Arrested 16 March 2010 in Surrey, pleaded guilty to money laundering on 5 October. Sentenced to 12 months.

2. Background on drug seizures and arrests:

Catalunya, Spain, 4 July 2008 On 4 July 2008, the Spanish Guardia Civil in Catalunya seized 486kgs of cannabis concealed in 27 boxes said to contain books and publicity items. The boxes were due to be transported by courier to a company in Fountain Street, Manchester.

San Sebastian, Spain, 17 July 2008 On 17 July 2008, the Spanish Guardia Civil in San Sebastian searched a consignment of 70 boxes said to contain promotional brochures relating to a development on the Costa Blanca. The boxes contained 1,050kgs of cannabis and were addressed to a company called Solid Foundation at premises in Bolton and Manchester.

Wrenthorpe, West Yorkshire, 17 October 2008 On Friday 17 October 2008, a Cheshire Constabulary covert operation led officers to a lock up facility at Wrenthorpe and the premises were searched under a warrant obtained by West Yorkshire Police. The lock up had a hidden room from which officers recovered around 180 boxes of cannabis resin, with an average weight in excess of 20 kilos, and around 40 large boxes of skunk cannabis each weighing between 4 and 11 kilos. The total weights and values of the drugs recovered from the unit were:

* 2,996 kilos cannabis resin with a value in excess of £12.9 million
* 266 kilos herbal cannabis with a value in excess of £1.1 million
* 89 kilos skunk cannabis with a value in excess of £750,000
* 1 kilo amphetamine with a value of around £10,000

Delivery labels recovered at the lock up showed an address rented by Trevor Holland of Horwich, Bolton.

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, November 2008 On Thursday 27 November 2008, Gloucestershire Police were contacted by a business service centre in Cheltenham.

Staff were suspicious of a consignment of packages delivered for a company which had rented space there since October 2007. Gloucester Police examined the packages and found 40 kilos of cocaine. They replaced the drugs with a dummy load in order to undertake a controlled delivery. At midday on 28 November, a van driven by Wayne Reed arrived to collect the consignment. He was arrested after delivering the drugs to a contact in Liverpool.

Enquiries led to a search of an address in Cleethorpes at which the company's e-mails were registered. Karla Reeves was arrested there. Her laptop yielded details of eleven companies, virtual offices in the UK, pseudonyms used, legitimate courier companies, payments made, delivery labels and the frequency of consignments. This evidence led to Paul Hewett, whose own laptop yielded information common to other strands of the investigation and links to the seizure in San Sebastian. Hewett had a number of mobile phones which revealed a pattern of calls and text messages relating to an importation in December 2007 and linking him to Karla Reeves and Michael Pollard.

Bolton Manchester April 2009 On the evening of 14 April 2009, SOCA enquiries identified a consignment of three boxes at a parcel distribution centre, addressed to Horizon Tech Services, Bolton. The boxes purported to contain technical graphic data manuals but contained approximately 15 kilos of cocaine.

SOCA replaced the cocaine with a dummy load and with the assistance of Greater Manchester Police carried out a controlled delivery at around 08.30 the next morning. Trevor Holland was arrested at the delivery address for being concerned in the supply of Class A controlled drugs.

A search recovered various documents with links to the seizure in San Sebastian and the seizure in Wrenthorpe. Three boxes identical to those in the controlled delivery were also discovered though these contained sand. Material from Karla Reeves' laptop refers to 'dummy runs'. Forensic analysis of the drugs packaging revealed similarities with the seizure at Cheltenham.

Contacts:

NDS Enquiries
Phone: For enquiries please contact the issuing dept
ndsenquiries@coi.gsi.gov.uk

Press Office
Phone: 0870 268 8100
pressoffice@soca.x.gsi.gov.uk