LONDON (TIP): Two Indian-origin men have been sentenced to prison in the UK for smuggling cocaine, cannabis and cigarettes into the country hidden in shipments of perishable goods. Anand Tripathi (61) and Varun Bhardwaj (39) were both sentenced to 19 years and 15 years in jail, respectively, after they were convicted in November, following a 71-day trial at Isleworth Crown Court, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
They were also sentenced for not paying 9,774,220 pounds in import duties and VAT on 18.6 million cigarettes they smuggled on three dates, separate from the drug imports.
The court heard that in total the men imported 272.86 kg of cocaine and 2,503.36 kg of cannabis across four shipments between September 2021 and November 2022. One shipment contained just over two tons of cannabis hidden amongst yams from Ghana. Another containing 49 kg of cocaine was concealed with oranges from South Africa. The drugs had an estimated street value of 28.9 million pounds but were all seized before they could be sold on and later destroyed by police. “These two men played vital roles in trying to flood UK streets with huge quantities of illegal drugs. The cost and damage to lives that drugs cause in our society is incalculable,” Richard Partridge from the CPS said. “This conspiracy was only made possible by Anand Tripathi’s experience in importation and customs clearance, and Varun Bhardwaj’s willingness to assume day-to-day management of their operation.”
Partridge added that there were others involved in the scheme who haven’t yet been identified.
The scheme involved the pair using their freight company as a cover to clear shipping containers that held drugs and cigarettes and diverting them from their intended destination to a warehouse they controlled.
There they would be offloaded by organized crime groups, according to the CPS. It was exposed when they failed to divert one container which instead went to a farm in Somerset in April 2022. The farmer found plastic covered blocks of cocaine with a street value of 15 million pounds hidden amongst animal feed from Colombia.
(Source: IANS)