JURORS are expected to sit for six weeks hearing evidence about one of the largest hauls of cocaine to be uncovered at Felixstowe port.Before Wolverhampton Crown Court are four men charged with bringing the 651kg of drugs worth £55m into the country hidden inside a bulldozer blade.
JURORS are expected to sit for six weeks hearing evidence about one of the largest hauls of cocaine to be uncovered at Felixstowe port.
Before Wolverhampton Crown Court are four men charged with bringing the 651kg of drugs worth £55m into the country hidden inside a bulldozer blade.
The court has been told that the portworkers at Felixstowe became suspicious of the cargo of bulldozer equipment, which also included tyres and tracks, and alerted the authorities.
X-rays then revealed the blade had been welded shut around hollows which, when drilled, were found to contain cocaine powder.
Customs officers allowed the consignment to continue its journey, tracking it to an industrial estate in Wolverhampton.
The haul was said to be part of a large-scale commercial drug trafficking operation between South America and Britain.
Rex Newport, 57, of Dyffryn Ardudwy, and his son Duncan Newport, 36, of Dyffryn, in Gwynedd, have pleaded not guilty to trying to import the shipment.
Louis Hillard, 56, of no fixed address, and Mark Reeves, 38, of Blakedown, Worcestershire, denied conspiracy to import a Class A drug over an 18-month period.
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