class a dopes | 

UK council officers jailed for smuggling 60 kilos of cocaine and meth on cargo plane

‘I have no doubt that had we not stopped them, they would have used this route repeatedly to bring in more drugs’

Yesterday at 15:28

Two men who were caught trying to smuggle a combined 60 kilos of cocaine and amphetamine into the UK from Mexico on a cargo plane have been jailed for 12 years.

Sundeep Singh Rai (37) and his 43-year-old accomplice Billy Hayre were members of an organised crime group (OCG) that plotted to bring in the 30 kilos of cocaine and 30 kilos of amphetamine hidden in a laser cutting machine

However, they were unaware that NCA investigators knew about the plan and provided intelligence to Border Force who found the drugs after the flight landed at Heathrow Airport on May 16 last year.

The haul of Class A was removed and seized before investigators allowed the empty consignment to go ahead while monitoring it.

More than a week later investigators were watching as it was collected from a cargo holding area on June 8 by a white Mercedes van and driven to the Greet Green Industrial Estate in West Bromwich, West Midlands.

Rai, of Okehampton Drive, West Bromwich, and Hayre, of Hathersage Road, Birmingham, met the Mercedes van and unloaded the shipment into an industrial unit.

The following day both men, who both worked as housing officers at Sandwell Council, took delivery of another drugs shipment.

The men met a heavy goods vehicle back at the industrial estate carrying a cover load of bananas.

As the pair began unloading it, NCA officers supported by West Midlands Police officers, moved in an arrested them.

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More than nine kilos of cocaine hidden in a cardboard box was also found in Rai’s car, while another two kilos of methylmethcathinone – also known by the street name of Meow Meow – was found in the garage of Rai’s home.

A property he rented in Balfour Crescent, Wolverhampton, was also searched where officers found 250 grams of heroin, 700 ecstasy tablets, a cash counting machine and a dealing list.

Both Rai and Hayre initially denied charges of conspiracy to supply class A drugs but changed their pleas to guilty just before a trial was due to start at Wolverhampton Crown Court on February 7.

Describing the defendants’ version of events as “preposterous”, the judge sentenced each of them to 12 years’ imprisonment.

NCA Operations Manager Chris Duplock said: “Rai and Hayre were behind a sophisticated attempt to smuggle class A drugs from Mexico on to the streets of the UK.

“I have no doubt that had we not stopped them, they would have used this route repeatedly to bring in more drugs.

“Working with partners at home and abroad, we will do all we can to disrupt the supply of class A drugs which are inextricably linked to gang violence and real suffering across UK communities.”