It was part of a scheme to smuggle in £1.6 billion worth of drugs into the country
They looked like ambulances. One vehicle had a patient apparently using crutches.
But hidden within the vehicles was its precious cargo. Huge quantities of cocaine, heroin and ecstasy were packaged and sealed behind riveted panels inside the fleet of Dutch vehicles, which entered UK ferry ports with fake patients and paramedics on board.
It was part of a scheme to smuggle in £1.6 billion worth of drugs into the country, the Liverpool Echo reports. The plot was masterminded by James Gibson, from the Midlands, who oversaw the massive drugs conspiracy with the aim of fuelling UK drugs gangs. He used trusted couriers to ferry the high purity illicit hauls from his Dutch contacts to the UK’s organised crime groups.
Investigating officers believed at least 45 trips were carried out, involving drugs with an estimated street value of £1.6bn. A judge who eventually sentenced the gang at Birmingham Crown Court said: “This was a highly sophisticated, meticulously planned and well-executed conspiracy involving the importation of class A drugs on a truly colossal scale.”
As part of a weekly series looking at the UK’s criminal history, the Echo took a closer look at the audacious plot, how officers eventually managed to break the supply ring and what impact the drugs would have had on the streets of Merseyside and further afield.
The downfall of the gang came in June 2015 when officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) began tracking the gang’s movements. CCTV footage from an Essex Holiday Inn Express hotel caught Gibson meeting Dutchmen Olaf Schoon and Leonardus Bijlsma.
Schoon established the bogus company to transport the drugs in the fleet of specially adapted vehicles, keeping records and invoices just like a legitimate business. The paperwork gave the impression the company’s income came from insurance companies who had paid out on policies covering travellers for accidents and illnesses, Sky News reported.
His “right-hand man” Bijlsma used rivet guns to open up the ambulance’s panels to stash the drugs. The day after the meeting a Dutch registered ambulance arrived in the hotel’s car park containing substantial quantities of drugs. They were unloaded by waiting couriers, some under the control of Gibson, of Ollerton in Nottinghamshire, to be sent across the UK.
Soon after NCA officers, working with West Midlands Police, traced one of the ambulances to a car park in Smethwick, Birmingham, after it had entered the UK via Harwich Port. Richard Engelsbel and another man, wearing paramedic uniforms, met with Schoon and Bijlsma who arrived in a Mercedes car.
They were with a fake patient on crutches, who was later seen by officers walking around without them. They were also in possession of a letter purporting to be from a Dutch patient being taken to a London hospital for treatment.
Officers quickly swooped in and arrested the four men. Following a search of the ambulance, officers found 193kg of high purity cocaine with a potential street value of over £30m. They also found 74kg of heroin with a potential street value in excess of £8m and MDMA with a potential street value of £60,000.
A dealer list was seized which identified a person by the name of ‘Gibbo’ who would play a pivotal role in the collection and distribution of the drugs.
The plot was believed to have been running for 14 months before the eventual seizure, with officers believing dozens of trips were made to deliver drugs to dealers in Merseyside, the West Midlands, London and Yorkshire. As part of the sophisticated scheme, the drugs were marked with different coloured tape, which corresponded to a list of 20 customers.
Andy Young, a specialist prosecutor in the CPS organised crime division, said: “In pursuit of profit, the defendants ignored the enormous cost of human life that comes with importing these drugs. The quantities are staggering – the last trip along involved nearly 270kg of drugs.”
When the Dutch men appeared in court in November 2015, it heard the smuggling operation may have seen up to £420m in “top quality” drugs reach the UK. However, when the were chopped down to street value wraps, the cash value could increase four-fold.
Prosecutor Robert Davies said the smugglers acted “arrogantly” in carrying out their deals. He said: “This was a top-level, audacious, and – up to the point of interception and the arrests – successful and lucrative criminal conspiracy.”
They were not considered to be “Mr Bigs” but important facilitators in the UK-wide conspiracy. Schoon and Engelsbel admitted their roles in the conspiracy, while Bijlsma was convicted by a jury. Schoon, described as the “central player”, was jailed for 24 years, while Bijlsma was handed a 28 year sentence. Engelsbel was given an 18 year jail sentence.
A fourth man was cleared of involvement in the conspiracy. The sentences were among some of the most severe handed out to drug smugglers by the UK courts.
The following year, another six people appeared before the courts. Kingpin Gibson fuelled the UK gangs using trusted, willing and well-paid couriers. He was sentenced to 20 years behind bar for his leading role in the UK arm of the operation. Five other men, from as far afield as Manchester to Slough, were also sentenced for their involvement as couriers.
Darren Owen, of Rushden in Northamptonshire; Jonathan Floyd, of Burnage in Manchester; Raymond DeSilva, of Slough; and Petrit Kastrati, of Crystal Palace were charged with conspiracy to import and supply class A drugs, while Richard Clarke, of Acton in Suffolk, was charged with conspiracy to supply only.
Appearing at Birmingham Crown Court with Gibson, Owen and Floyd were both sentenced to 15 years in prison, DeSilva 16 years, Kastrati 17-and-a-half years and Clarke 11 years.
Brent Lyon, operations manager at the NCA, said: “This was an audacious plot by organised criminals who were driven by profit and who went to extreme lengths to avoid law enforcement attention. Gibson’s influence and organisation was significant, from the relationship he had with the Dutch organised crime group to the trusted network of UK couriers he used to distribute substantial amounts of class A drugs throughout the country.
“The six men sentenced today knew they were engaged in serious and organised crime yet continued their drug trafficking activities regardless. However, due to the weight of evidence we provided, they were left with no choice but to plead guilty to all the charges put to them.
“I have no doubt that through our activity, we have disrupted the endeavours of a number of organised crime groups operating in the UK. We will continue to be flexible and use all the tools available to us to target organised criminals and protect the communities that we serve.”