A man from Kent has been jailed for seven-and-half years at Canterbury Crown Court after attempting to smuggle approximately 10 kilos of amphetamine and a kilo of cocaine into the UK.
The drugs had an estimated street value of £520,000.
On 19 February this year Border Force officers stopped a British-registered Ford transit van at the tourist controls in Dover's Eastern Docks. When questioned the driver, Thomas John Mayes, said he had been to Belgium to pick up market goods for sale in the UK. Officers searched the vehicle and found the drugs under a false floor in the vehicle.
Mayes, 23, was arrested and the investigation passed to the National Crime Agency.
Mayes pleaded guilty at a hearing at Canterbury Crown Court on 10 March and was sentenced there yesterday, 31 March 2014, to seven-and-half years imprisonment.
