Two jailed in foiled £4m cocaine plot

15 Aug 2013 01:30 PM

Two men were sentenced on 9 August to a total of  44 years for attempting to traffick 45 kilos of 100% pure cocaine into the UK. Randall St Patrick Lewis  from  Lewisham, South London and William Hayles from Beckenham in Kent attempted to import the drugs under the guise of carrot juice in an air freight consignment from Jamaica in January 2013.

At the Old Bailey HHJ O'Neill said: “You are both equal partipants in this endeavour and I am sentencing you accordingly."

The operation began in January 2013 when Border Force officers examined a consignment of mixed foodstuffs which arrived into Gatwick Airport. The consignment consisted of both fresh produce - yams, sweet potato and pumpkin - as well as cartons of processed foods.

Among the tinned foods were 15 boxes of carrot juice. Each box contained 24 tins. Further investigation found that 161 of the tins contained cocaine suspended in liquid.
 
The following day, the drugs were removed from the load, which, apparently unaltered and under SOCA surveillance, was allowed to continue to a storage facility in Southall before being delivered its destination in Charlton.

The next morning Randall St Patrick Lewis and William Hayles arrived in a hired transit van, into which they loaded the boxes. A short time later a total of five men were arrested, three men remain on police bailed pending further enquiries.

The operation was in partnership with UK Border Force.