A crime boss in charge of the English end of an international drug smuggling network which brought up to £58 million pounds worth of heroin and cocaine into the UK was jailed for 21 years this afternoon Friday.
Robert Brooks, 50, thought he was untouchable, operating his business with the use of encrypted phones which cost £15,000 per contract. He used the name “Jaguar Palace” when using the phone.
But he was wrong and investigators were able to gather intelligence on his operation which was centred on a farm in the Hertfordshire countryside where he stored the drugs In August 2019 the police were then able to intercept two shipments of Class A drugs being brought into the U.K from Europe on board lorries.
On one consignment officers secretly installed a tracking device. Officers then followed the lorry as it pulled into a farm. As officers burst into the farm one of Brooks’ henchmen was using an encrypted phone to contact him in Spain about the tracker that had just been discovered on the lorry.
Officers were able to seize the phone which provided them with valuable information about the gang’s activities. St Albans crown court heard on Friday, September 25, Brooks was behind the largest-ever drugs conspiracy investigated by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit.
Between 2018 and last summer he had has overseen 39 separate deliveries of heroin and cocaine to a rented unit at Little Samuels Farm in Hunsdon, in rural East Herts. Police estimated he had brought into the country 1,835 kilos of Class A drugs which had a wholesale value was between £42 million and £58 million.
But the value of the drugs on the streets would have been considerably more. The drugs would come into the country from Europe hidden in lorries. The gang would hide the drugs at the bottom of consignments of worthless goods.
One such load was a shipment of spider catcher devices that were of such little value they were thrown away in a skip. On arrival at the farm the drugs would be unloaded by a fork lift truck into sheds and barns that had been rented out at the farm.
From there courier would drive five kilo quantities of with the class A drugs to the north of England and across the UK.
Brooks described as the managing director of the English end of the network wasn’t always present, preferring to direct operations from Spain.
The court heard the crime network was connected to Europe and much further afield. Brooks, of Elder Court, Hertford pleaded guilty to conspiracy to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation of a Class A drugs and possession of criminal property between November 2018 and August 2019.
The court was Brooks a businessman with no previous convictions had travelled throughout Europe make contact with orgised crime groups telling them he had the means to bring large quantities of drugs into the U.K.
He had also made contact with organised crime gangs in the U.K. who he could ship the drugs to.
The jailing of Brooks means he and his associates have received jail sentences totalling more than 60 years and three months.
Passing sentence on him Judge Michael Kay QC told him “Class A drugs destroy lives of those who are addicted to them, they destroy the lives of families of those who are addicted. Many cases come before this court where children have been damaged because of drug addiction in their families.”
The judge told Brooks communities suffered because the use of class A drugs was behind acquisitive crime such has robberies, burglaries and shoplifting whichbhe said we’re committed by those needing the money to buy drugs.
“Those who make money from such misery and degradation of fellow citizens will achieve substantial prison sentence. The business is not just illegal, it is immoral and despicable.”
Last week Richard Campbell, 49, from Milton Keynes who was the ‘warehouse manager.’ at the farm admitted conspiracy to evade the prohibition of Class A drugs and was jailed for 13 and a half years. Tomasz Wozniak, 28, also from Milton Keynes who was the fork lift truck driver, admitted conspiracy controlled drugs of Class A.
He was jailed for six years and three months. Stephen Capp, 56, from Hull who went to the farm 18 times to collect drugs to deliver to the north of England was sentenced to 9 years 6 months.
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply a drug of Class A on 18 visits to the farm. He also admitted possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply when he was stopped in December 2019 with five kilos of Class A drugs.
In his car was a ‘sophisticated’ hiding place for the drugs. Pieter Mannessen received six years in Holland following the seizure of 70kg of cocaine that was due to be delivered to the farm.
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