Mark Robinson of the Garden Court Crime Team acted for the defendant, instructed by Michael Situ of Midtown Law.
Mark Robinson secured an acquittal for the defendant in Isleworth Crown Court. The defendant was charged with the offence of being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition, after cocaine with a street value of nearly 2 million pounds was found in their suitcase at Heathrow Airport.
The defendant travelled from the Caribbean and checked their suitcase in at the local airport to board their in-bound flight back to the UK. At the time of check-in, their suitcase weighed 12kg, but after being retrieved from the baggage carousel, the suitcase weighed 32kg, and the Border Force officer searched and arrested the defendant. The defendant’s personal belongings were missing from the suitcase and substituted with food packaging containing the cocaine. There was no forensic link to the defendant. Due to the amount of cocaine seized, and its purity of 80%, the defendant faced a potential sentence of 15 to 20 years custody, if convicted.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) conducted the investigation, and found this was a “rip in, rip off’ operation by an organised drug trafficking group, using corrupt baggage handlers to facilitate a “rip in”. During the cross examination of the lead officer, Mark argued that there had been multiple failings, including: a failure to preserve CCTV, both in the UK and the country of departure, a failure to liaise with international law enforcement partners, and a failure to carry out an Apple ID check on an Apple Tag found in one of the packages of cocaine. The officer accepted that there had been failures in the investigation.
The jury took just under three hours to unanimously return a not guilty verdict for the defendant.
