Jail for smuggling haulier
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• A haulier who masterminded a major cannabis smuggling operation into East Anglia has been jailed for four and a haif years and had 24,950 confiscated under the Drugs Trafficking Offences Act, Peter Baker, 38, of Hadleigh, who ran White Rose Transport, was sentenced last week aFter a two-year Customs & Excise operation. This used undercover surveillance techniques and informant drivers who were wired for sound.
White Rose's transport manager Edwin Southgate, 45, of Kesgrave, was jailed for three and a half years. Customs investigators first became interested in Baker because he never seemed to be short of money despite using ageing trucks and the fact he made no significant profits. It emerged that Baker's drivers were duped into carrying the drugs by being lured away from their trucks while they were in Holland. But when Baker and Southgate went to pick up 33kg of cannabis in January 1992, they did not know that Customs had already seized the load,
But Baker did not stop even when he was in Norwich prisonawaiting trial on smuggling charges. In April he got in touch with another haulier and asked him to make a drugs run.
What Baker did not know was that the haulier was a prized Customs informant. He recorded their conversations, and a second Customs operation, Yorkshire 2, led to the arrest and conviction of three other men in the distribution network,