Moment leader of ‘UK’s biggest drugs conspiracy’ - importing up to an estimated £7bn of drugs - is arrested

Eighteen members of an international organised crime group (OCG) have been convicted after a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into the UK’s biggest ever detected drugs conspiracy.

The offenders are thought to have smuggled several billion pounds worth of heroin, cocaine and cannabis to the UK.

From south east England to Scotland, crime gangs were fed drugs from the OCG’s imports, which are believed to have contained more than 50 tonnes of drugs - the weight of around 30 family sized cars.

Six seizures of drugs with a total street value of £40m were made from the OCG, which was based in north west England with accomplices in the Netherlands, between the indictment period of August 2015 and September 2018. But NCA investigators proved there were at least 240 importations by the OCG, which went to great lengths to confuse the authorities and avoid justice.

The OCG was led by Paul Green, 59, of Widnes, Cheshire, who was sentenced to 32 years in prison.

The group set up a series of front companies and warehouses in England and the Netherlands to mask the offending. And to avoid detection, the OCG concealed its drugs in consignments of strong-smelling foodstuffs such as onions, garlic and ginger. They bought so many onions, between 40 tonnes and 50 tonnes a week, that they couldn't get rid of them and often sent them back to the continent to act as another cover load.

As well as bringing in his own OCG’s drugs for subsequent sale, Green specialised in operating a smuggling route for other UK based crime groups.

The criminal charges against OCG members related to five separate smuggling plots.

Green created a fake paper trail to smuggle £1.1m of amphetamine base oil in bottles of cream bought in Belgium. But a Border Force dog sniffed out the drugs hidden in a van on March 29 2016.

The offenders used a front company cloned from a legitimate business in Truro, Cornwall, to try and smuggle 8kgs of cocaine worth nearly £1m into the UK.

Conspirators rented a warehouse in Uithoorn, northern Netherlands, and hid the cocaine in four cardboard boxes packed with ginger for deliveries to be made to warehouses they had rented in Bolton, Wigan and Ormskirk. The OCG also rented warehouses in Leeds, Preston, Sheffield and Warrington over the course of their offending.

In 2018, after the NCA and Dutch Police began working together, the scale of the OCG’s offending became clearer. They seized 450kg of cocaine and heroin and two tonnes of cannabis across three seizures at the ports of Killingholme and Immingham, both Lincolnshire, and one in the Netherlands.

Green was also convicted of fraud by false representation.

He and accomplice Leslie Kewin, 63, of Runcorn, Cheshire, stole a man’s identity and raised a £262,000 mortgage on the victim’s four-bedroom house in Mount Way, Waverton, near Chester, to pay for a drugs debt. Instructed by Green, Kewin rented the property and changed his name by deed poll to the same as the landlord.

Kewin then claimed he owned the house and obtained the fraudulent mortgage, provided by a small finance company. The OCG used the landlord’s name to: open several bank accounts; create a company called Blackpool Fruit and Veg; and rent a warehouse in Leeds.

When Green was arrested, officers recovered almost £10,000 in cash from his home. His bank statements showed he and his wife spent more than £26,000 on watches and jewellery in the previous six months.

Between 2016 and 2018, more than £1.5m passed through Green and his partner’s bank accounts. Between 2013 and 2018, Green only submitted two tax returns for cleaning and hairdressing businesses. He declared a profit of £7,405 for 2014-15, and a profit of £17,396 for 2015-16.