Heathrow luggage handlers helped to smuggle cocaine

A FORMER airport luggage handler is facing jail after he helped an international gang smuggle £10 million of cocaine through Heathrow.

Mohammad Ali, 41, moved drug-filled suitcases flown in from Brazil from the international carousel to a domestic carousel to avoid security checks.

Timothy Probert-wood, prosecuting at Southwark Crown Court, said the scheme centred around the daily 1pm flight from Rio de Janeiro.

UK workers were sent descriptions of bags – loaded with cocaine by corrupt staff in Brazil – so that they could separate them from the luggage going through security and place them for collection from domestic arrivals.

Michael Sutherland, 48, and his assistant Leoina Townsend-bartley, 32, helped coordinate drug couriers. Francisca Archer, 26, and Felicia Kufour, 66, were recruited as couriers.

Ali, of Slough, Berkshire, Sutherland, of South Norwood, Townsend-bartley, of Camberwell, both south London, Archer, of Stamford Hill, east London, and Kufour, of Bedford, were convicted of conspiring to import cocaine from Sept 2015 to Dec 2016.

All five will be sentenced on April 9.