WIREDGOV

A man has been convicted after attempting to smuggle £1 million of heroin and cocaine into the UK hidden in car door panels.

The National Crime Agency investigated Mohammed Hussain, 29, of Uttley Drive, Sheffield, after the class A drugs were found in a British-registered BMW which had arrived on a ferry in Dover on 29 September 2020.

Hussain, who was driving the car, initially told Border Force officers who had stopped the vehicle that he had been to Frankfurt, staying at a Holiday Inn.

But he couldn’t provide any details and then changed his account to say he had been to Amsterdam during the previous four days.

A search uncovered the drugs, which weighed 16 kilos, in taped packages which had been hidden in all four door panels of the car.

Small amounts of cannabis were also found in the car following further searches.

The cocaine and heroin would have been worth around £1 million if sold on the streets of the UK.

Hussain was subsequently charged with attempting to import class A drugs and convicted on 14 June following a four-day trial at Canterbury Crown Court.

NCA Branch Commander Martin Grace said: “Officers were immediately suspicious when Hussain seemed to have forgotten where he had spent the days leading up to his arrest. His story just wasn’t plausible.    

“As it turned out his car was carrying a lethal cargo of class A drugs, the kind distributed by county lines gangs and other exploitative criminal networks throughout the UK.

“By continuing to work with our partners like Border Force, we will bring the full force of the law down on drugs smugglers and disrupt the organised criminals pulling the strings behind them.”

Hussain will be sentenced at a later date.