Jailed for harmless powder • A Turkish lorry driver has
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been jailed for 14 years for attempted smuggling despite the fact the powder he had imported turned out to be harmless.
The 47-year-old driver was arrested by Customs and found to have 80 kilos of what appeared to be heroin hidden in a reserve fuel tank.
But the powder, realistic enough to fool experienced Customs men, turned out to be harmless, having been swapped for the real thing at some stage during the lorry's journey from Romania to the UK.
Cahit Yetkinsekerci was convicted at Canterbury Crown Court of attempted heroin smuggling, a charge he denied.
Anthony Leonard, prosecuting, told the jury that somewhere along the line, someone was double-crossed, but "if a man holds himself out to be willing to import heroin, then it makes him no less culpable if he is double-crossed by someone else". The Crown said that had the powder been heroin of standard purity, its street value would have been £5.7 m.
The concealment was under the lorry trailer's floor boards in a reserve tank. Customs keeping watch at a lorry park heard banging from inside the trailer but Yetkinsekerci later said when questioned that he was trying to repair the floor. In evidence he said his intention was to sell the lorry and buy another. He was having mechanical problems and was unaware he was being watched.
He spent a week in London after landing at Dover then returned and continued trying to mend the trailer between making phone calls to Turkey to his disabled son.
He was surprised when arrested and denied he was protecting those higher up in the organisation. He had £897 on him when arrested but said it was his own money. driving summonses by 50%; and dangerous driving summonses by 25%, in an extension of Operation Lifesaver which started in the Louth Meath district last year. Seventy-seven people have died on Irish roads so far this year.
Gardai will concentrate driver checks on roads to and from local festivals and race meetings in a bid to cut down on fatal accidents.
The AA has criticised the move, saying it is reactive policing, and called for a concentration on ways of reducing accidents.