SEVEN men have been arrested in the massive cocaine in coconut bust in London and anti-narcotics agents here are continuing to try to track down the source of the shipment.
Six of those arrested have been charged in connection with the seizure and the seventh man has been released on bail, British Customs said yesterday.
British Customs last Thursday seized 572 kgs of cocaine hidden in 20 bags of a consignment of 315 bags of coconuts shipped from Guyana.
The cocaine was not hidden within the coconuts, a British Customs official said.
Those charged are Andrew Pritchard, 38, of 33 Barrett's Grove, Stoke Newington, London; Fitzroy James Farrell, 32, of 1 Scot Court, 10 Agnes Street, London; Scott Trevor Lomax, 28, of Floods Court, East Street, Olney, Buckinghamshire; Ozan Melin, 28, of 982 Uxbridge Road, Hayes, Middlesex; Gavin Graham Hunt, 36, of 25 Sylvan Road, Wanstead, London, and Simon Howlett, 41, of 119 Endlebury Rd, Chingford, London.
British Customs said the shipment was valued at 28.6 million pounds sterling.
Six men were arrested Thursday night, following the seizure by Customs investigators of more than half a tonne of cocaine concealed within the consignment of coconuts imported from Guyana and delivered to Spitalfields Market.
Duncan Stewart, Assistant Chief Investigation Officer, said: “As a result of this operation Customs have successfully stopped a huge quantity of cocaine being sold on London's streets, the proceeds of which would undoubtedly be used to fund further crime.
“This is an extremely successful operation and an excellent example of the way Customs are working to prevent the smuggling of Class A drugs, and thereby reducing the harm to our society”.
British Customs have contacted the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) here on the cocaine haul and local agents are following leads, a source said.
The cocaine was in bags with green-skinned ‘water’ coconuts of the kind widely grown in Essequibo and CANU agents have been deployed to check on recent shipments from here to London.
A top security official here has said that the cocaine in coconuts consignment from Guyana is further evidence that Colombian drug lords have taken over the drug trafficking rings here.
“The large shipments of cocaine from Guyana recently uncovered in London and the United States could not have been handled by the small fry here”, the official told the Chronicle. “These operations are too sophisticated and this is the work of the Colombians who have moved in.”
British Customs intercepted the cocaine in coconuts consignment after it had been cleared and was in a truck for delivery at Spitalfields Market.
Other large shipments of cocaine from Guyana have been intercepted in London in timber and rice exports and in fish consigned to the United States.
“These are large operations which are clearly being handled by the big drug rings”, the security official said.
Colombian drug barons have been shifting operations out of Colombia since the massive crackdown against narco-trafficking in that country under the United States-backed ‘Plan Colombia’, he said.
“‘Plan Colombia’ has driven some of the drug lords from Colombia and some of them are clearly operating here and have taken over local rings.”
‘Plan Colombia’ is the US$4 billion counter-narcotics programme launched during the Clinton administration and extended from counter-narcotics to counter-terrorism in August 2002.