National Crime Agency (NCA)
🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Police · 18 reports
- People arrested
- 1,742
- Plants destroyed
- 183,422
- Cannabis seized
- 45.5432 t
Totals of what these reports state; a report counts when a source it cites names the agency.
Five couriers jailed over 460 kg of cannabis flown to Birmingham
Five members of an eleven-strong smuggling gang were sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court for trying to bring 460 kg of cannabis from Thailand to Birmingham via Paris. The drugs, valued at £13.8 million, were found vacuum-packed in 22 suitcases in August 2024 after Apple AirTags linked the couriers to one account.
Cannabis 460 kgDevon woman jailed for 25 months for smuggling 51.2 kg of Thai cannabis
Amy Jayne Durban, 45, of Hemyock in Devon, was sentenced to 25 months in prison on 14 October 2026 for smuggling 51.2 kg of cannabis from Thailand. Border Force officers arrested her at Heathrow Airport in July with two suitcases of cannabis that the National Crime Agency said was worth at least £512,000.
Arrested 1Charged 1Cannabis 51.2 kgPrison 25 monthsSwansea man jailed 11 years over 408 kg cannabis import
On 23 October 2025 Chelmsford Crown Court jailed Swansea man Karl Richter for 11 years for a 408 kg cannabis import from South Africa and a separate cocaine conspiracy. Officers had found the cannabis in March 2022 hidden inside a machine lathe in a crate at Tilbury Port.
Cannabis 408 kgPrison 11 yearsCash confiscated GBP 4,000One lorry driver jailed over 70 cannabis bags hidden in trailer
Kirk Hackett was sentenced to three years and nine months after a lorry stop near Doncaster uncovered cannabis concealed beneath the trailer floor. The NCA said the load was hidden in 70 bags and valued at £2.1 million; accounts do not reconcile on its total weight.
Arrested 1Charged 1Prison 3 years and 9 monthsAlmost 27 tonnes of cannabis seized at UK airports in 2024
Border Force and the National Crime Agency seized 26,924 kg of cannabis from about 750 couriers flying into UK airports in 2024, nearly five times the 2023 total. Most couriers arrived from Thailand, Canada and the United States, recruited by organised crime groups exploiting legally grown foreign cannabis.
Arrested 750Cannabis 26.924 tFour jailed 26 years over 1.5 tonnes of cannabis in gari sacks
On 18 October 2024 Southwark Crown Court jailed four men for a combined 26 years over 1.5 tonnes of cannabis smuggled from Ghana in sacks of gari powder. Border Force found 2,335 packages in a container at Tilbury Docks after a National Crime Agency sting; two of the men were sentenced in their absence and remain at large.
Arrested 4Charged 4Cannabis 1.5 tPrison 26 years combined (10, 7, 5 and 4 years)UK-wide Operation Mille seizes 182,422 plants and arrests 967
In the June 2023 Operation Mille intensification, police across England and Wales executed 1,013 warrants, seizing 182,422 cannabis plants valued at GBP 115-130 million and arresting 967 people in the largest national operation of its kind.
Arrested 967Plants destroyed 182,422Two Britons held as 4 tonnes of cannabis resin seized off Gibraltar
Spanish customs escorted a storm-hit sailing boat into Cádiz on 10 December 2022 and recovered 130 bales of cannabis resin, about four tonnes. Tipped off by Britain's NCA via the Lisbon maritime centre, officers detained a 49-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman.
Arrested 2Cannabis 4 tSailboat BIBI boarded off Huelva with six tonnes of hashish
Spanish Customs and National Police boarded the sailing yacht BIBI in the Atlantic about 130 miles off Huelva and seized around 6,000 kg of hashish. The three crew, including a veteran skipper, were arrested.
Arrested 3Cannabis 6 tNCA finds 1,000-plant cannabis farm in ex-Coventry nightclub
National Crime Agency officers raided a former nightclub on Trinity Street, Coventry, on 15 October 2020 and found around 1,000 cannabis plants worth more than £1 million. Three men were arrested and charged with producing a class B drug.
Arrested 3Plants destroyed 1,000NCA seizes 600 kg of cannabis in vegetable lorry at Templepatrick
National Crime Agency and Police Service of Northern Ireland officers stopped a lorry in Templepatrick on 3 June 2020 and recovered about 600 kg of herbal cannabis hidden among vegetables. Three men were arrested in what the NCA called its biggest ever drug seizure in Northern Ireland.
Arrested 3Cannabis 600 kgTwenty-one sentenced over £6m Vietnamese cannabis network in south Wales
Police seized 2.5 tonnes of cannabis worth about £6 million in raids across south Wales under Operation Violet Panama. Twenty-one members of a Vietnamese organised-crime network were sentenced at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on 27 September 2019, with the ringleaders jailed for up to eight years.
Charged 23Cannabis 2.5 tStudent jailed two years over 10 kg cannabis at Glasgow Airport
Zixian Long, 21, was caught with 10 kg of cannabis in a suitcase from Barcelona at Glasgow Airport on 31 December 2017. Convicted after trial at Paisley Sheriff Court, she was jailed for two years on 8 January 2019; her mother had been caught with 10 kg at Edinburgh Airport a day earlier.
Cannabis 10 kgPrison 2 yearsMalaysian man jailed 18 months over 10 kg cannabis at Edinburgh Airport
Border Force officers stopped Yong Keh Kee, 28, arriving from Madrid on 28 April 2017 and found ten vacuum-packed packages of cannabis in his suitcases. Valued at £100,000, the haul led to an 18-month sentence at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on 23 August.
Cannabis 10 kgPrison 18 months1,440 kg of cannabis seized from a yole off Basse-Terre; six held
French customs coastguards and OCRTIS police stopped a yole about 25 km north-west of Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, on 10 January 2016 and recovered about 60 bales of cannabis herb weighing 1,440 kg after the six-man crew threw them overboard. The six Saint Vincent nationals were jailed in provisional detention at Ducos prison in Martinique pending a judicial investigation.
Arrested 6Cannabis 1.44 tBorder Force seizes 1.1 tonnes of cannabis at London Gateway
Border Force officers seized 1.1 tonnes of cannabis from a Ghana-origin container at London Gateway on 12 September 2015. The 42 boxes of shrink-wrapped cannabis were valued at about £2.3 million and the case was passed to the National Crime Agency.
Cannabis 1.1 tTwo jailed over 28-tonne cannabis smuggling conspiracy
A judge at Luton Crown Court jailed John Wright for nine years and four months and Steven McDonald for eight years on 13 March 2015 for a seven-year conspiracy that brought more than 28 tonnes of cannabis into Britain from the Netherlands.
Convicted 2Border Force finds 540 kg of cannabis among potted plants at Felixstowe
Border Force officers found 540 kg of herbal cannabis in 68 boxes hidden among potted plants in a trailer from the Netherlands at Felixstowe on 4 October 2013. Two Dutch men were arrested and bailed while the National Crime Agency investigated.
Arrested 2Cannabis 540 kg