A drug smuggler tried to cover £22.8m value of cocaine below dry ice by pretending it was destined for a London hospital.
Bart Verschueren, 40, was caught after a car was stopped on the Coquelles border control in France, with Border Force officers discovering the 285kg of Class A medicine.
To hold out his smuggling, Verschueren had duped an harmless part-time driver who was initially arrested on 5 Could 2020, however subsequently launched when it was found he had no information of the plot.
His paperwork mentioned his consignment of dry ice was for St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, which he invented to keep away from checks through the Covid-19 lockdown. The hospital was on no account linked to the dry ice.
Verschueren, of Sint-Katelijne-Waver, a municipality south of Antwerp, was convicted and jailed in Belgium for different drug trafficking offences he dedicated in 2020 and 2021.
He was subsequently extradited to the UK in August 2024 and charged with smuggling the 285kg of cocaine.
Regardless of denying the offence, he was convicted by a jury at Canterbury Crown Court docket in March and was jailed for 18 years on Thursday.
Jurors heard the identical car used for the failed smuggling try had efficiently made it to the UK thrice within the previous weeks. He was subsequently sentenced on the idea that he had trafficked at the least 500kg of cocaine.
Peter Jones, NCA operations supervisor, mentioned: “The NCA works at residence and overseas to guard the general public from the specter of Class A medication which wreck lives and our communities.
“Bart Verschueren did the whole lot doable to cheat justice. And he thought nothing of risking his driver’s freedom. When he knew his car had been stopped, he reported his driver lacking in a bid to distance himself from the importation.”
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