A Zimbabwe-born businessman and his uncle have started jail sentences totalling 14 years in Britain after police smashed a bid to smuggle almost 1,7 million worth of cocaine into the UK.
The drugs were hidden in a consignment of 20 000 bottles of soft drink delivered to Ice Age Supplies, the import export business of Lionel Malinga based at an industrial unit in Church Road, Darlaston in the West Midlands.
The 33-year-old father of three, from Windsor Road, West Bromwich, set up the firm to bring cars and foodstuffs into the country, but turned to crime when the trade dried up, the Wolverhampton Crown Court heard on Friday.
The drugs were smuggled by sea from Trinidad and Tobago to Felixstowe where they were intercepted by customs and police officers.
They found 11 packages of cocaine weighing almost nine kilogrammes with a wholesale value of 360 000 that would have fetched up to 1,68 million at street sale prices, the court was told.
The haul was removed from its hiding place under covers stuck to the bottom of the shipping container and replaced with a harmless substitute before the cargo was collected from the docks and taken to the Ice Age Supplies depot.
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Investigators followed the lorry to Darlaston where Malinga, and his uncle, former Birmingham mental health nurse Terrence Miti (40), were secretly filmed taking nine hours to empty the 1 000 cases of drink bottles from the container before raising it onto wooden chocks to remove the packages which they believed still held drugs.
Malinga admitted conspiracy to smuggle cocaine and was jailed for eight years while Miti from Manchester received a six-year sentence after being convicted by a jury of knowingly being concerned in the illegal importation of the drugs.
Malinga said he rejected an offer to get involved with that shipment but decided to help smuggle the second batch because his legitimate business had stopped making money in the intervening period.
Newzimbabwe.com