WIREDGOV

A Merseyside man arrested in Ibiza's Pacha nightclub has been convicted alongside his ex-partner of orchestrating two large-scale drug importations following a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation.

Details of 23-year-old Eddie Burton's plot can now be revealed as his ex-partner Sian Banks, 25, pleaded guilty to assisting his criminal enterprise on the first day of her trial at Canterbury Crown Court recently (3 February).

Burton was living in mainland Europe at the time two lorries containing heroin, cocaine and ketamine were intercepted at Dover port in the summer of 2022.

The drugs weighed a combined 307 kilos with an estimated street value of £20m.

Border Force officers stopped the first lorry on 3 July and found 90 kilos of ketamine and 50 kilos of cocaine packed into boxes and a Lidl shopping bag.

The second lorry was intercepted just six weeks later, on 12 August.

Inside officers discovered 142 kilos of cocaine and 25 kilos of heroin in a fuel tank that had been modified to conceal the drugs.

Its driver, 64-year-old Latvian national Maris Fridvalds, was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment in March 2023 for his role as courier in the attempted importation. 

Forensics found Burton's fingerprints and DNA on both drug consignments, and the adapted fuel tank. 

NCA investigators initiated a manhunt for Burton, who was living between the Netherlands and Spain after relocating from the UK in early 2021.

He was arrested by Spanish police in August 2023 at Pacha nightclub, Ibiza, for unrelated drug dealing offences. At the time he was using an alias in an attempt to evade detection.

After being extradited to Germany and charged with drug offences, he was returned to the UK in March 2024 by specialist National Extradition Unit officers from the NCA's Joint International Crime Centre (JICC).

Burton subsequently pleaded guilty to four counts of importing Class A and B drugs. 

Eddie Burton (left) & Sian Banks (right)

Sian Banks, also from Liverpool, pleaded guilty to a total of seven charges on 3 February, including importing Class A drugs and money laundering.

Banks was first arrested in December 2023.

Enquiries as part of the NCA's investigation found that between June 2022 and October 2023 she travelled to the Netherlands and Spain on a monthly basis to visit Burton.

And a review of her phone evidenced that on two occasions in August 2022 she smuggled cocaine and ketamine into the UK in her luggage after visiting Burton in Amsterdam.  

NCA investigators also uncovered messages sent between her and Burton on 5 July 2022 – two days after the first lorry carrying drugs was intercepted.

The messages indicated that she flew out to the Netherlands in late June and prepared the first shipment of drugs for transportation alongside him.

In one message she told Burton that her fingerprints were on the bags of ketamine and he replied, "you've never been nicked or had ye prints took anyway so doesn't matter".

She was also found to be operating a scam selling doctored Covid-19 travel documents in the height of the pandemic. 

The pair will be sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court on 12 February. 

NCA Branch Commander John Turner yesterday said:

"Burton, with Banks' help, attempted to smuggle huge quantities of harmful drugs into the UK, believing he could operate with impunity overseas.

"Banks held a crucial role in the criminal enterprise, laundering the illicit profits and acting as the UK-based facilitator for the multi-million pound drug importations. 

"The drugs, had they reached their final destination, would have had a destructive impact on our communities, fuelling violence and exploiting vulnerable people throughout the supply chain."