Salone on the spotlight again as… £140m Cocaine allegedly Smuggles To UK
A gang led by a drug importer known as “Thor” attempted to smuggle £140million of cocaine into the UK from Sierra Leone. The organised crime group headed up by Darren Schofield carried out their shady dealings in the car park of a Beefeater pub and outside a GP practice.
Their huge stash of illicit class A substances was hidden inside a shipment of flour which was transported from West Africa by boat before its seizure at the border. Members of the criminal syndicate have now been locked up for more than 80 years, with a former champion boxer this week becoming the latest conspirator put behind bars
Liverpool Crown Court previously heard in December last year that the National Crime Agency launched Operation Lemonlike after 1.3 tonnes of cocaine, worth £36million at wholesale level but with a street value of as much as £140million, was seized at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk. The 1,306kg of class A drugs had been concealed with a shipment of 20kg sacks of garri flour which had arrived from the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown on June 8, 2022 and was bound for an industrial unit at Bradley Hall Trading Estate in Standish, Wigan, via a stop in Morocco.
Martin Reid KC, prosecuting, described Schofield, of St Philip’s Avenue in Litherland, as a “a leading member of a Merseyside-based crime group” and “responsible for the overall coordination of the importation”, which was foiled when the huge consignment was intercepted by the UK Border Force.
The 45-year-old, who had no previous convictions, was nicknamed “Thor” by his fellow gang members, apparently owing to his long locks.
Stephen Martland, of Lakeland Gardens in Chorley, arrainged for the rental of the premises where the drugs were to be delivered and was also involved in sourcing chemicals which would enable the illicit substances to be cut in order to boost profits. Paul Mockett, aged 50 and of Stump Lane in Chorley, set up a registered company, BH Supplies Ltd, to facilitate the purchase of these adulterants.
