Drugs smuggled in box swaps
Page 14
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Police discovered a £300,000 haul of cannabis after going to investigate two men transferring boxes from a truck to a car in a motorway service area, a court heard.
Motorist Stephen Repman of Church Street, Harwich, Essex, and truck driver Martin Edwards of Golcar, Huddersfield, were both jailed for four years after a jury found them guilty of smuggling. Christopher Amor, prosecuting at Maidstone Crown Court, said the pair were spotted by traffic police last March at the
Pavilion service area on the
M2 outside Gillingham. The lorry and the car were parked back to back and the two men could be seen taking boxes off the lorry and putting them in the boot of the car.
"The officers decided to go over and see what was going on. Repman said he was responsible for the car and that he was collecting a delivery of what he understood to be bottle tops," said Amor.
In interviews, Repman admitted he travelled about
once a week to the Continent to the Belgian border to buy boxes of handrolling tobacco to sell at a profit.
He took a call on his mobile phone from a Mr Evans, who said he had
been given his number by a friend and who, he claimed, asked him to col lect four boxes of bottle tops from the Farthing Corner service station on the M2 in Kent.
Evans had said he would
pay Repman 2120 for the favour and he
was told to go to the car park at the service station and look for a Belgian-registered trailer.