Cocaine worth almost £2m which was destined for the streets of Essex has been seized thanks to proactive work by our officers.
Drugs courier Kieran Grant was jailed on Friday 13 January for eight years.
When Grant was stopped on the M11 at about 10.30pm on March 31, he quickly admitted to officers that he had a large amount of drugs in his boot
The 40-year-old, of Hartington Road, in Southend, was stopped on the London-bound carriageway just before junction 8 as checks on the Skoda Fabia he was driving showed it was uninsured.
Once he had got out of the car, officers began to question him, asking if there was anything in the car that they should be aware of.
Grant immediately replied: “In the boot.”
When asked what was in the boot, he replied: “Drugs – a lot. Cocaine.”
When the vehicle was searched, officers found 19 wrapped blocks of cocaine, totalling 19kg, in the boot which was being transported in two ‘bags for life’.
The drugs have a wholesale value of £665,000 and a street value of about £1.9 million.
Grant was arrested and subsequently charged with possession with intent to supply Class A drugs.
He admitted both charges at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court on April 2 last year, 2022, and was sentenced on Friday 13 January at Basildon Crown Court to a total of eight years imprisonment.
The drugs will also be destroyed.
Detective Sergeant Leo Fordham, of our Serious and Organised Crime Unit, said:
“This was a sizeable seizure of drugs which were undoubtedly destined for the streets of Essex.
“We know all too well the harm that drugs cause, both to those who take them and those involved in the supply of them.
“In this case, driving an uninsured car proved to be Grant’s downfall and outed him as a complicit criminal courier and he will now spend a significant amount of time behind bars for his actions.”
Essex Police has a number of teams dedicated to tackling drugs and the high harm they cause in our community including our Disruptor and Op Raptor teams as well as our Serious and Organised Crime Unit.
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