Four members of a gang which plotted to import £20,000,000 worth of cocaine in frozen fish deliveries bound for a London market have been jailed.
They were each handed sentences ranging from 13 years to 22 years after plotting to import the cocaine from South America.
One of the gang’s legitimate businesses planned to receive the shipment at Billingsgate Market, the Metropolitan Police said.
The four men were sentenced for conspiracy to import Class A drugs at East London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday.
Samuel Tokeley, 57, of Alicante, Spain; and Nicholas Shilling, 63, of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, were each jailed for 22 years.
Scott Richards, 51, of Wickford, Essex, was sentenced to 14-and-a-half years, and Scott Unwin, 52, of Dagenham, Essex, was jailed for 13 years.
Part of the drugs operation – dubbed the ‘Fish Conspiracy’ by detectives – had an estimated UK value of more than £20 million.
It involved Tokeley, Unwin and Shilling plotting to import approximately 600kg of cocaine hidden within frozen fish shipments from South America, using Unwin’s legitimate fish business at Billingsgate Market to receive the load.
The scheme was uncovered when encrypted conversations were spotted on the now-dismantled EncroChat platform.
Although encrypted messages showed the group discussing payments, shipping documentation, logistics and contacts in Ecuador responsible for sourcing the cocaine, the importation never happened, the Met said.
Recovered messages included conversations about the movement of cocaine, ketamine, large sums of cash and cryptocurrency, plus plans to use legitimate businesses and transport routes to try to hide their actions.
The investigation also uncovered separate conspiracies to import industrial quantities of ketamine, with phone messages revealing plans for hundreds of kilograms of the drug to be sourced, processed on the continent and imported into the UK for wholesale distribution, the police said.
Detective Chief Inspector Dean Grafton, from the Met’s specialist crime unit, said the gang was operating on a massive ‘industrial’ scale.
‘The defendants believed that encrypted communication platforms would protect them as they discussed vast quantities of drugs, laundering criminal profits and exploiting legitimate businesses to facilitate their offending,’ he said.
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