Drugs gang who smuggled £450million worth of cocaine hidden in wheels of Gouda cheese to Dover are jailed

A gang who smuggled more than £450million worth of cocaine into the country by hiding the drug inside wheels of Gouda cheese have been jailed. Three members of the drugs network were imprisoned today over their role in bringing more than 4.5 tonnes of cocaine to the UK in shrink-wrapped pallets of cheese. The concealed drugs, worth a street value of hundreds of millions of pounds, were brought in at Dover from Europe before being supplied throughout the north of England, police said. Today, three people convicted for their roles in the conspiracy were jailed at Leeds Crown Court, following the convictions of four other members of the gang earlier in the week. A total of 22 members of the organised crime group have so far been convicted of conspiring to supply cocaine, following an extensive investigation by West Yorkshire Police. The trials began last year, with the three men found guilty today awaiting sentencing at a later date. Reporting restrictions on the huge smuggling operation were in place until both trials concluded. Now, the scale of the drugs gang network can be revealed. Although the exact quantity of cocaine processed by the gang is unknown, available intelligence and evidential assessments by police estimated the amount seized to be between 4 and 14 tonnes. This equates to a street value of between £400million and £1.4billion. Footage showed the moment police discovered the drugs inside the blocks of cheese They then cut out two large blocks of cocaine which were hidden in the centre of the wheel A police operation tracked down members of the drug gang transporting the goods According to Home Office analysis, the UK consumes approximately 120 tonnes of cocaine each year - meaning the seizure would singlehandedly account for up to 11 per cent of the annual UK consumption of cocaine. The investigation first started after cocaine and ecstasy worth £2million was seized in Leeds in 2023, prompting West Yorkshire Police to uncover a sophisticated distribution network. An investigations team found that an organised crime group had imported 123,568kg of cheese into the UK between December 2022 and April 2023. Approximately 25 per cent of this weight was concealed blocks of cocaine.The consignments of cheese had been transported as commercial freight into Dover and then to a legitimate distribution hub in Derby. Refrigerated trucks collected the shrink-wrapped pallets of cheese and delivered them to industrial units in Huddersfield, Cleckheaton and Halifax in West Yorkshire, and Blackburn, in Lancashire. Two of the hubs were managed by Aiden McCullagh, while one was run by Saleem Chaudhri. Ikraam Safdar was then discovered to have rented a unit at a car wash in South Parade, Halifax, which was also used as part of the operation. Across these premises, McCullagh, Chaudhri and another man, Craig Asquith, would unpackage the blocks of cocaine hidden within the large wheels of cheese and package them in brown cardboard boxes and black bin liners. Blocks of shrink-wrapped cocaine were found by police hidden inside wheels of Gouda cheese More than 4.5 tonnes of cocaine were brought to the UK inside the cheeses, with a street value of more than £450million Jordan Miles, Mark Briggs and Ikraam Safdar were caught for their roles in the drugs gang Pictured: Sammy Stapleton, Aiden McCullogh and Lewis OckendonPictured: Darren Johnson, Umar Farooq and John Whittell, who were all sentenced to over a decade in prison for their parts in the drug smuggling operationPictured: Craig Asquith, Aaron Gowans and Harry JohnsonCraig Goulding (left) was sentenced to 25 years, while Nathan Reilly (right) will be sentenced at a later date Once the drugs were ready for onward supply, a network of couriers from West Yorkshire, Lancashire, the West Midlands, and the North East would descend on the areas around these distribution hubs to collect their supplies. At Whitacre Industrial Park in Huddersfield and Acorn Business Centre in Cleckheaton, Lewis Ockenden and Umar Farooq acted as trusted 'lieutenants', who would meet the other couriers nearby and take their vehicles from them. At Yaseen Business Centre in Blackburn, Chaudhri was then discovered by police to operate similarly, driving out from the unit to meet couriers nearby and either taking their vehicles into the unit himself to be loaded or taking the drugs to their vehicles to be loaded off site. In May 2023, officers from Lancashire Police moved in on Chaudhri's operation in Blackburn and found 217kg of cocaine inside the unit - some of which was still secreted inside large blocks of Gouda cheese. Each block of cheese was found to contain two 'bricks' of cocaine, which had been crudely concealed by hacking a space into each one. The investigation into Chaudhri showed that he had agreed to sell more than 2,000kg for more than £70million between September 2022 and May 2023. He was sentenced to 27 years and six months in prison at Preston Crown Court in April 2024. After the police raid on Chaudhri's premises, police said the distribution network stopped using cheese. Some of the drugs packages seized by police. They were brought into the country via Dover, and then distributed to the North of England 20 men have been sentenced over the drug operation so far, while three others await sentencing Some of the drugs were disguised in packages with the sports brand Nike logo Other drugs packages were disguised as various brands, including chocolate and alcohol Instead, later operations used chocolate spread and frozen fish mince to hide the drugs. Craig Goulding was linked by phone contact with some of the other drugs gang members involved in both the West Yorkshire and Lancashire hubs. Messages showed he was paid thousands to dispose of the waste food created. Goulding was shown to have a directing role, moving money between the hubs. Eight people were already jailed for their roles in the conspiracy, and a further seven were sentenced this week. McCullagh, Goulding and Asquith were found guilty at trial of conspiracy to supply a Class A drug and were sentenced in May this year. McCullagh, 58, of Brighouse, West Yorkshire, and Goulding, 39, of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, each received 25-year prison sentences. Asquith, 44, of Wakefield, was jailed for ten years, while Farooq, 37, of Halifax, was sentenced to 15 years. Ockenden, 36, of Wakefield, was jailed for 13 years and four months and Safdar, 44, of Halifax, was sentenced to eight years and nine months. The driver, John Whittell, 43, of Wakefield, was sentenced to 12 years and nine months, and David Jackson, 48, of Manchester, was sentenced to 14 years and four months. This week, Harry Johnson and Darren Johnson, both of Leicester, were jailed for 16 years and 15 years respectively. Jordan Miles, 32, of Coventry, West Midlands, was jailed for 12 years and eight months and Arran Gowans, 28, of Darlington, County Durham, was jailed for five years and 11 months.Today, three couriers were jailed for their roles in the conspiracy - Brandon Eley, 31, of Tamworth, Staffordshire, for 10 years, Aaron McNally, 38, of Manchester, for 10 years and nine months, and Antony Etheridge, 70, of no fixed address, for 18 months.Three other defendants, Mark Briggs, 31, of South Shields, Tyne and Wear, Sammy Stapleton, 42, of Manchester, and Nathan Reilly, 26, of Wythenshawe, Manchester, will be sentenced at a later date.Zoe Nixon, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS Yorkshire and Humberside, said: 'Behind the creative attempts of this group to conceal their dealings was an industrial-scale criminal enterprise which had been funnelling vast quantities of illegal drugs across the country.'Each of the defendants had a role to play in keeping that enterprise operating, whether that was running the hubs, unpacking the drugs or transporting them to buyers across the country.'Working closely with West Yorkshire Police, several other forces and an experienced team of barristers we were able to piece together extensive amounts of evidence to demonstrate the men's guilt and hold those responsible for this operation accountable.' Detective Inspector Kevin Daly, of West Yorkshire Police Programme Precision, said: 'This was a vast and complex criminal operation involved in distributing huge quantities of cocaine that were being smuggled into the UK, mostly in what appeared to be legitimate consignments of cheese.'The quantities of the drug involved make it the largest criminal enterprise that we as a Force have taken down, and the success of this operation is testament to the hard work and dedication of the officers involved.'They spent many months painstakingly building up a complete picture of how the operation worked and who were the key people running it in the UK. It was only by taking the required amount of time to gather a detailed and comprehensive evidential package that we were able to dismantle this distribution network as fully as we could and ensure that those who ran it were caught and held to account.'We know only too well the damage that drugs do in our communities, where they fuel crime and serious violence, and the negative impact they have on the lives of individual users and their families.'Those involved in this significant criminal operation were profiting from that misery and we hope it will provide some reassurance to people to see them face the consequences of their actions.'Tackling serious and organised criminality at this level and complexity presents a significant challenge to law enforcement both locally and internationally, but we will continue to do everything we can alongside our partner agencies to target those involved, disrupt their activities and bring them to justice.'