A lorry driver from Northern Ireland has been jailed today at Maidstone Crown Court for three years after being found guilty of attempting to smuggle 339 kilos of cannabis into the UK through Dover in boxes of frozen chips.
The estimated street value of the drugs was £1.1 million.
Nigel Donnelly, 44, was stopped by UK Border Agency officers at the inbound freight controls at Dover on 17 February 2010. After questioning him, officers scanned the lorry he was driving and found an area within the load which needed further investigation.
Officers searched the load of frozen chips and found that 48 of the boxes contained both chips and cannabis.
Donnelly had denied the smuggling charge but was found guilty by a jury at Maidstone yesterday (20 June 2012) following a trial.
