£1.6billion drug smuggler stuffed fake ambulances with cocaine
FAKE ambulances were used to smuggle £ 1.6billion of drugs across the Channel to Britain, a court heard.
Three Dutchmen were involved in the ‘lucrative conspiracy’ to import cocaine, heroin and ecstasy, concealed from border officials with the aid of bogus paramedic uniforms and even fake patients on crutches.
Leonardus Bijlsma, 55, now faces a lengthy jail term after being convicted of drug smuggling following a two-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
Olof Schoon, 38, said to be the ‘central player’ in the operation, admitted a charge of conspiring to smuggle drugs. A second man, Richard Engelsbel, 51, admitted the same charge. Another man, 28-yearold Dennis Vogelaar, was acquitted by the jury of smuggling.
During Bijlsma’s trial, the court heard that all the men were arrested near a scrapyard in Smethwick, West Midlands, in June after Schoon and Bijlsma had driven to the rendezvous in a hire car.
A Mercedes ambulance driven to the scene by Vogelaar and Engelsbel was also seized and found ‘rammed’ to the roof with drugs.
Officers from the National Crime Agency broke open the rear of the vehicle and found hundreds of packets of drugs, neatly wrapped and stacked, concealed behind riveted metal plates.
In all there was 193kg of cocaine with a street value of more than £30million, and 74kg of heroin worth £8million in individual deals. Officers also found thousands of ecstasy tablets and 2kg of MDMA crystal powder.
Robert Davies, prosecuting, described how Dutch authorities tipped off by British colleagues uncovered ‘a fleet’ of similarly adapted ambulances at two yards in the Netherlands believed to have been used to transport a ‘staggering’ amount of contraband.
Mr Davies said: ‘This was a toplevel, audacious and, up to the point of interception, successful and lucrative criminal conspiracy.’
It is estimated that the operation brought £420million in high-purity drugs into the UK, with a street value worth four times that amount.
Schoon, Engelsbel and Bijlsma, all from Amsterdam, will be sentenced on December 7.