NEW YORK: A Liverpool man was part of a “professional” drug-smuggling gang which tried to bring cocaine and heroin into the country in secret compartments of lorries.
A lorry driven by Ian Bayliss, 54, who is from Liverpool but currently of no fixed address, was stopped by Border Force officers in Dover in November 2011, as he travelled back from France.
Officers seized about four kilos of heroin, which had been concealed in an air tank on his vehicle.
Another tank contained a similarly adapted compartment, but it was empty.
Financial investigations showed a large cash deposit had been paid into Bayliss’s bank account before his arrest.
In April 2012 five kilos of heroin and two kilos of cocaine were seized from a lorry driven by Anthony Atkinson, 47, of Haig Avenue, Cadishead, Greater Manchester.
A cash deposit had also been paid to Atkinson before his lorry was stopped, and he had paid off lump sums of his mortgage.
The drugs from the two seizures were estimated to be worth about £900,000 if cut and sold in the UK.
Dean Lennox, 45, of Northbank Gardens in Burnage, Manchester, was identified as a “transport manager” for both drivers by investigators from the National Crime Agency’s Border Policing Command.
Lennox had purchased a number of fire blankets used to wrap up the drugs seized and was in Dover at the time of the April 2012 seizure.
Drugs concealed in the air tank of a lorry driven by Ian Bayliss, 54, from Liverpool
Phone evidence linked a fourth man, Carl Hogg, 51, of Tatton Street, Hulme, Manchester to the gang.
All four men were charged with conspiring to import controlled drugs.
Bayliss was found guilty on October 29, 2013, along with Lennox and Hogg, following a trial at Canterbury Crown Court.
He was sentenced to nine years while Lennox and Hogg were both jailed for 21 years.
Atkinson pleaded guilty to one conspiracy charge but denied another. Following a trial which started on June 23 this year he was cleared of the second count but on Friday he was jailed for nine years for the April 2012 offence.
Rob Jones, from the National Crime Agency’s Border Policing Command, said: “These four men were professional smugglers. They were involved in a conspiracy to bring large quantities of contraband into the UK in lorries that had been specially adapted for the purpose.
“Working with our Border Force colleagues we have prevented a significant amount of class A drugs reaching the UK and taken out a criminal network that was involved in their supply.”
Director of Border Force South East and Europe Paul Morgan said: “Every year Border Force officers seize drugs worth hundreds of million of pounds, putting a serious dent in the profits of the international criminal networks involved in smuggling.
“Working with our colleagues at the NCA we are determined to stop drug traffickers. Those convicted of drug importation offences face considerable prison sentences.”
