Four men involved in a plot to smuggle over £20m worth of cocaine into a London fish market inside frozen shipments have been given prison sentences.
The group planned to transport around 600kg (1,230lbs) of the Class A drug from South America, aiming to receive the cargo through a legitimate firm based at Billingsgate Market, according to the Metropolitan Police. They received jail terms spanning between 13 and 22 years.
Sentences were handed down at Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London on Friday following their convictions for conspiracy to import Class A drugs.
Samuel Tokeley, 57, residing in Alicante, Spain, and Nicholas Shilling, 63, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, were both given 22-year terms.
Meanwhile, Scott Richards, 51, from Wickford, Essex, was handed a sentence of 14-and-a-half years, while 52-year-old Scott Unwin, of Dagenham, Essex, received 13 years.
Detectives named the investigation the "Fish Conspiracy", assessing that aspect of the illicit operation held an estimated UK street value exceeding £20m.
The scheme relied on Tokeley, Unwin and Shilling concealing the cocaine inside batches of frozen fish arriving from South America, using Unwin's established fish business at Billingsgate Market as the destination point.
Law enforcement exposed the conspiracy after gaining access to encrypted messages sent via the now-defunct EncroChat service.
Though decrypted chats revealed discussions surrounding logistics, financial transfers, customs paperwork and contacts in Ecuador tasked with supplying the cocaine, the planned shipment was never ultimately completed, police noted.
Further intercepted communications contained details on moving cocaine, ketamine, substantial cash amounts and cryptocurrency, as well as strategies to exploit genuine corporate infrastructure and transport links to disguise their activities.
Officers also identified additional schemes aimed at trafficking industrial volumes of ketamine, with mobile phone records showing plans to obtain and process hundreds of kilograms on the continent before sending them to the UK for wholesale trade.
Detective Chief Inspector Dean Grafton, belonging to the Met’s specialist crime unit, stated that the group was "operating on an industrial scale".
He added: "The defendants believed that encrypted communication platforms would protect them as they discussed vast quantities of drugs, laundering criminal profits and exploiting legitimate businesses to facilitate their offending."
The operation involved close collaboration between the Met, the National Crime Agency and foreign law enforcement bodies.
