£7m cannabis haul uncovered at Tilbury port
Border Force officers have foiled a plot to smuggle cannabis worth around £7 million into the UK through Tilbury port.
Border Force officers have foiled a plot to smuggle cannabis worth around £7 million into the UK through Tilbury port.
The haul - approximately 2.5 tonnes - was discovered last Wednesday inside cans of tinned fruit and vegetables imported from Jamaica.
Dean Milton, from Border Force, said: "This was an elaborate and labour intensive attempt to breach our border controls.
"The smugglers had been careful to ensure that each of the tins weighed precisely 500gms and had been hermetically sealed.
"To the naked eye there was nothing to differentiate between a tin that contained an innocent foodstuff and one that was hiding illegal drugs."
Border Force officers spent days examining the thousands of tins.
Mr Milton said: "By preventing these drugs from reaching the UK's streets we have hit the smugglers where it hurts and denied them of the potential proceeds of their criminal enterprise.
"If proof were needed that drug smugglers are serious criminals it is provided by seizures of this scale, which is the biggest at Tilbury this year.
"Make no mistake this is a big business that trades on human misery and we are working tirelessly to stop it."
The cannabis was destroyed and no arrests have been made.
http://www.thisistotalessex.co.uk 11/06/2012
S
Soft Secrets
