German Trucker Jailed for Smuggling Half a Ton of Cocaine

A GERMAN trucker aged 57, has been jailed for 19 years for drug smuggling after being caught at Dover with half a ton of cocaine worth £38million (€44,110,980) hidden in stacks of tyres in the back of his lorry.

A 57-year-old German trucker, Kawus Rafiei, has been jailed for 19 years after he tried to smuggle half a tonne of cocaine worth £38million (€44,110,980) into Britain hidden inside stacks of tyres in the back of his lorry.

After a five-day trial at Canterbury Crown Court in Kent, Rafiei was found guilty of attempting to import Class A drugs.

Border Force officers had scanned Rafiei’s lorry and “detected an anomaly in the load”, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. Officers had started investigating Rafiei, originally from Shiraz in Iran, after a “huge” drugs seizure was made at Dover’s Eastern Docks on March 18 of last year.

In the lorry, two shrink-wrapped stacks of tyres within the trailer unit were opened, revealing packages of cocaine weighing 1,036 pounds (470 kilos).

According to forensic experts, once cut and sold the seized drugs are believed to have been worth an estimated £37.6million (€31,468,388) on the UK streets.

Rafiei had paperwork for two ‘legitimate’ deliveries on board and produced documentation for the tyres which showed they were loaded in the Netherlands and going to a car fitting company in the UK, said the NCA. NCA officers were later able to show the paperwork had been ‘doctored’ for the cover load.

NCA Dover branch commander Martin Grace said: “This seizure prevented a huge amount of cocaine from coming into the UK, and has landed a corrupt lorry driver in jail. The drugs trade leads to violence in our communities, and often it’s the most vulnerable people who suffer the consequences. Working with partners like Border Force, we are committed to breaking the supply chain, and disrupting the organised crime groups involved.”

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