Smuggler jailed 7.5 years over 138kg cannabis in coconuts
Richard Myers, 53, of Smethwick was jailed for seven-and-a-half years at Birmingham Crown Court on 20 August 2021 over almost 138 kg of herbal cannabis hidden in coconuts sent from Ghana, plus 497 g found at his home. The National Crime Agency said he had travelled to Ghana to oversee the loading.
🇬🇧 Birmingham Crown Court, Birmingham · United Kingdom
Border Force officers opened a container destined for Myers’s Soul Foods business that had arrived in the United Kingdom on 13 July 2018 and found sacks of coconuts with plastic-wrapped herbal cannabis hidden inside the fruits.[1][2]The coconut cannabis weighed almost 138 kg, and officers found a further 497 g block of cannabis at Myers’s home.[1][2]The National Crime Agency valued the drugs at 650,000 pounds on the streets of the United Kingdom.[1][2]
Agency investigators found that Myers, 53, of Smethwick in the West Midlands, had travelled to Ghana to see the drugs loaded before returning to the United Kingdom.[1][2]He had earlier drug-smuggling convictions, including cannabis hidden in a false-bottomed suitcase in 1995 and cannabis in luggage on return from Jamaica in 2002 and 2003, as well as a drug-import conviction in Sweden.[1][2]
He denied importing cannabis and possessing it with intent to supply but was found guilty after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.[1][2]He was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years of imprisonment at the same court on 20 August 2021.[1][2]
Photos and video
Plastic-wrapped cannabis hidden inside coconuts from the Soul Foods consignmentPhoto details
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