£500,000 DRUGS HAUL AT PORT
● Driver spared jail for part in export plot:
A LORRY driver was caught trying to smuggle cannabis worth £500k into Ireland after being stopped at Holyhead Port.
Louis McPhillips, 27, from Rosemount Park, Armagh, was stopped by Border Force officers as he was about to board a ferry at the North Wales port to the Republic of Ireland in the early hours of 24 January 2019.
McPhillips was found to be carrying several large cardboard boxes full of skunk among the load in his trailer.
The 50 kilos of cannabis would have been worth around half a million pounds at street value.
Through checking CCTV, ANPR records and mobile phone data National Crime Agency [NCA] investigators were able to piece together his movements before the seizure.
He had been in text message contact with Ben Kelly, 26, from Southall in west London, the day before, arranging to meet him just off the M1 near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, where McPhillips was due to pick up his legitimate load of cleaning products.
Kelly had travelled up from London with the cannabis in his van, and CCTV captured their meeting.
The two travelled from Chesterfield in convoy to the A50 near Derby where the drugs were loaded on to the truck.
Shortly after the handover, McPhillips texted an unidentified number saying “6 big ones this time, lot of stuff”.
Kelly was arrested by the NCA on 18 July 2019 in Greenford, after investigators linked him to the 24 January seizure.
The two men pleaded guilty to conspiring to export class B drugs, and at Southwark Crown Court McPhillips was given a 22-month jail sentence, suspended for two years.
Kelly got 20 months, also suspended for two years.