Britain’s “biggest-ever drug ring” run by a gangster nicknamed “The Big Fella” smuggled up to £7 billion worth of heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis into the UK.
Paul Green, 59, was the point of contact for numerous gangs which paid a fee to ship drugs into Britain over two-and-a-half years by hiding them in pallets of fresh produce – in particular, onions, garlic and ginger.
Green and his fellow conspirators went to “extraordinary lengths” to disguise their involvement as they set up a series of front companies and warehouses in the Netherlands and the north of England by using false and stolen identities.
Drugs would be hidden among fresh produce at the Dutch end of the enterprise and then shipped into the UK by innocent haulage firms before the criminals would remove the drugs for distribution to their fee-paying customers as part of the “transport service”.
Onions, garlic or ginger were often the produce of choice as they helped conceal any smell of drugs.
Among the customers was John Kinsella, the 53-year-old Merseyside mob enforcer who was shot dead by a hitman in May 2018 as he walked his dogs with his pregnant partner.
Andrew Thomas KC, prosecuting, said a feature of the sequence of conspiracies between March 2016 and September 2018 was the “determination to continue the importations even after arrests and/or drug seizures”.
He told jurors: “As soon as one company became exposed, they would switch to another one.”
Only six seizures of drugs were made but National Crime Agency (NCA) investigators were able to prove at least 240 consignments took place with up to four shipments per week.
Among the many items of evidence gathered were messages on Green’s encrypted EncroChat phone, with his handler name of “Duckfarmer”, to accomplices in which he arranged shipments.
Green had no previous convictions but had changed his name twice by deed poll – from Simon Swift to James Russell and then to Green due to financial difficulties and his self-confessed involvement in property and business fraud.
In addition to supplying other gangs, Green brought in drugs for his own team to distribute for sale.
It is believed to be the largest drug-smuggling operation ever detected in the UK, Manchester Crown Court heard.
During sentencing, Judge Paul Lawton told gang members: “Your main purpose was the importation of controlled drugs on an international, and hitherto unprecedented, scale with a value of at least £2 billion and potentially as high as £7 billion.
“The harm caused beyond the importation is incalculable. What you were actually distributing was addiction, misery, social degradation and death.”
The defendants were separated into two trials, with reporting restrictions lifted following the conclusion of the second trial which lasted nine months.
The first trial involving Green lasted 23 months as jurors took 141 hours to reach their verdicts.
Green, from Widnes, Cheshire, was jailed for 32 years after he was convicted of conspiracy to import drugs and fraud by false representation.
His “right-hand man”, Steven Martin, 53, of Bolton, Greater Manchester, who organised the finances, was imprisoned for 28 years, while another key member, Muhammad Ovais, 46, of Burnage, Manchester, who was in charge of distributing drugs to gangs, was sentenced to 27 years in jail.
Among others sentenced for drugs importation conspiracy charges were fluent Dutch speaker Russell Leonard, 48, of Kirkby, Liverpool, who was jailed for 24 years, and Dutch crime bosses Johannes Vesters, 54, and Barbara Rijnbout, 53, both of Utrecht, who received prison terms of 20 years and 18 years.
Richard Harrison, the NCA regional head of investigations, said: “This was an extremely high-harm OCG that used every tactic possible to evade detection and cheat justice.
“The offenders smuggled huge quantities of drugs into the UK. They had absolutely no ethics. They stooped incredibly low and left a trail of devastation for entirely innocent people by cloning businesses and stealing identities.
“NCA officers and Dutch partners were tenacious and left no stone unturned in this investigation.”
