A drugs gang described as “amateurish” by a judge has been jailed for more than 40 years for trying to smuggle cocaine and ketamine worth £33 million into Britain.
The leading figure, Charlotte Moore, 33, lived on disability benefits. Her boyfriend and carer Stephen Norris, 36, helped her run their part of what the prosecution called “a well-organised operation”.
Kathryn Drummond, prosecuting, told Hove Crown Court: “The amount of drugs involved is eye-watering.
“The authorities managed to seize 177 kilograms of cocaine. In round figures that is £5 million wholesale, with a street value of £14 million.
“The police also seized well over half a tonne (632kg) of ketamine worth £4 million wholesale, with a street value of £19 million.
“In total the drugs in this case are worth £33 million on the street. Those drugs were intercepted in three short months. This is the sort of wealth that most people can only dream about.”
The four people who were jailed at Hove Crown Court today (Thursday 27 June) were snared by the Sussex Police Serious Organised Crime Unit, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Border Force.
Moore and Norris worked with Belarusian lorry driver Kiryl Laptseu, 42, of no fixed address, to try to smuggle drugs with a street value of about £8 million into the country.
Laptseu was stopped by Border Officials in Calais in May last year and arrested. Forensic scientists examined the drugs packages and found traces of DNA from Moore, Norris and Laptseu.
In June last year, Moore and Norris appeared to carry out a dry run for another attempt at smuggling drugs across the Channel.
After the dry run, Moore and Norris went by car ferry to Rotterdam and when they returned to England they were stopped at the Port of Tyne, near Newcastle.
Border Force officials found a specially welded hidden compartment in the boot of Moore’s Citroen car and found that it contained traces of ketamine. The car was confiscated.
In July, the pair worked with another lorry driver, 50-year-old Pavel Budzko, also from Belarus, to load drugs on to another lorry in Belgium before trying smuggle them into Britain.
Budzko, also of no fixed address, drove to Dieppe and then brought 30 boxes of drugs, with a street value of £24.5 million, by ferry to Newhaven.
Budzko drove his lorry from the port to the nearby Avis Way Industrial Estate, Newhaven, where he met Moore and Norris and two other men – Abdul Soohraby and Mehran Jamali, also known as Scar.
They drove a short distance to a layby just south of the Beddingham A27 roundabout where they unloaded the drugs from the lorry and split the haul between two vans.
They agreed to meet by the Premier Inn Uckfield, just off the Batts Bridge Roundabout, where the A22 and A272 meet, on the western edge of Maresfield.
Then police swooped. Moore and Norris were arrested by officers who were waiting for them in a carefully planned sting while Soohraby was arrested at the neighbouring Ashdown Business Park.
The £24 million drugs haul was one of the biggest ever seized by Sussex Police.
And, by January, Moore, Norris, Laptseu, Budzko and Soohraby all went on trial at Hove although the weight of evidence prompted Moore and Norris to change their pleas to guilty within days.
In February, the jury acquitted Soohraby, 53, of Exeter Drive, Sheffield, of being concerned in the supply of cocaine and ketamine. He denied knowing what he was transporting. But Lapsteu and Budzko were both convicted of drug smuggling.
The evidence presented to the jury included mobile phone location data, messages and other material retrieved from the defendants’ phones, and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera evidence and banking transactions.
The jury was told that while Moore and Norris were in the Netherlands, Belgium and France in May last year, she wanted boxes and tape to package the drugs.
Her phone showed that she had searched for the phrases “I am looking for cardboard moving boxes” and “Do you do brown packing tape for boxes” and used Google to translate them into French.
Miss Drummond told the court that Norris, 36, and Moore, 32, both of Middleburg Street, Hull, were a business partnership as well as having been a couple for about seven years.
She said: “This was a well-organised operation and there were a number of people working in it.
“Charlotte Moore had worked her way up to a trusted position within the organised crime group through one of her childhood friends, Stephen Shukla.”
Miss Drummond said that Moore turned to drug dealing in part because had a gambling habit and run up debts but she relished her position of trust with the organised crime group.
The prosecutor added: “The profits she was making from her role in the organised crime group were substantial.”
The drugs were high purity, Miss Drummond said, adding: “They’re wholesale class A drug importers but there are others in the chain above them.”
The jury was told that those people remained at large.
Glenn Harris, defending Moore, said in mitigation: “This is very serious offending, with eye-watering sums and consequences for society.”
He said that Moore was “the sort of lady who would work in a pet shop and would put money in a fruit machine”.
She became involved through an old school friend as a result of naivety and exploitation and was motivated by a desire to pay off her gambling debts.
Saleema Mahmood, for Norris, said that he had gone along with Moore. He was her carer and had a caring nature but he had mental health problems of his own.
Norris had a history of depression and breakdowns and Miss Mahmood quoted a report saying: “He has a fragile character with a fear of abandonment.”
Paul Jackson, for Laptseu, said: “He performed a limited function under direction.”
Jay Shah, for Budzko, made the same point as he also asked for the least sentence that the court could impose.
Moore was jailed for 13 years. Norris was jailed for 10 years. Laptseu and Budzko were each jailed for nine years, making 41 years in all.
Detective Constable Laura Pettitt said: “The seizure of this substantial amount of drugs – one of the largest ever seizures in Sussex – comes as a result of excellent collaborative work between Sussex Police and the NCA.
“The sentences imposed reflect the extremely serious nature of the offences committed and are a testament to the hard work of all the teams involved from Sussex Police, the NCA and the Crown Prosecution Service.
“Sussex Police will continue to pursue organised crime groups and investigate those involved in the supply of illegal drugs.
“Illegal drugs cause harm and misery to those that become addicted to them and to their families and friends, often linked to other crimes being committed to fund their addiction. This in turn impacts our wider communities and affects us all as the cost to society remains high.
“Although drug offences are victimless crimes, the way these organised crime groups operate poses a significant risk to vulnerable and young people, who find themselves being dragged into the drugs world and potentially being exploited.”
NCA operations manager Rachel Bramley said: “These convictions are testament to the collaborative work between the NCA, Border Force and Sussex Police.
“This crime group sought to flood the south of England with drugs all for their own financial gain, without any care for the misery their harmful commodities bring to our communities.
“Drug dealing is directly linked to gang violence and the exploitation of vulnerable people and children across the UK.
“At the NCA, we are committed to pursuing the organised criminals responsible for running drug supply chains and ensuring they have their day in court.”
