An 'incompetent' cocaine courier was caught on the M6 with £600,000-worth of criminal cargo after being spotted speeding in a car with a defective brake light. Debt-ridden Lee Green, 37, made the illegal excursion in a bid to reduce arrears of £2,000 he owed crooks over his own substance use.
He was caught out on January 24 when two PCs saw his Peugeot close to Junction 39 near Shap in Cumbria.
"It was travelling at excessive speed, overtaking vehicles and then failing to return to the correct lane," prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told Carlisle Crown Court today (Thursday). "A defective brake light was also noted so the officers decided to pull the car over.
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"He appeared nervous and fidgety when speaking to officers and gave an account that he was travelling to the North East to visit someone and potentially buy a dog."
Green then told the officers: "I will tell you the truth. Someone has asked me to do the job. He gave me £600. That’s what I got paid. I didn’t even put them in the car."
"Them," said Mr Rogerson, referred to six separate 1kg blocks of high purity cocaine wrapped in plastic rubber packaging.
"They were found in an area of the boot described as a ‘hide’ — an area constructed in the car to conceal these packages," said Mr Rogerson.
The total haul of just over 6kg had a potential wholesale value of a quarter of a million pounds and an estimated potential street level value of £600,000. Green was arrested and when brought to court he admitted possessing the class A drug with intent to supply.
“There must be an element of him being a trusted courier with such a large consignment of drugs,” said Mr Rogerson. Jacob Dyer, defending, said Green had been out of trouble since 2011 with a job for United Utilities and a family, before a relationship breakdown and spiralling cocaine use left him unemployed and heavily in debt.
“Under a degree of pressure he was persuaded to do the job,” said Mr Dyer of Green. “It is clear he didn’t take particular care. He was stopped for a number of reasons: speed, position in the middle lane, his brake light. As a courier, he was totally incompetent.
“He says that others modified the car. He was given the drugs. They were put in the car. He agreed to do it, foolishly. The financial motivation was that he was to have a reduction of his drug debt.”
Judge Nicholas Barker jailed Green, of St Gabriel’s Close, Leigh, for four years, eight months. “No one knows where that cocaine was heading,” said the judge. “You said to the police at the time you were going to see someone in the North East about a dog.
“Wherever that cocaine was going it was going to make a significant impact as drugs that would be dealt at street level and eventually monies would have been paid for it. That would have ended up in the organised crime world.
"That would have created more misery for those who take the drugs, such as yourself, and more misery for those that are caught up in that organised crime.”
In addition to the jail term, Judge Barker also ordered the forfeiture of the cocaine seized.
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