Corrupt Heathrow Airport manager tried to smuggle £2m worth of Colombian cocaine into UK
A Heathrow Airport security manager who tried to help a couple smuggle £2m worth of cocaine into the UK from Colombia has been jailed for 16-and-a-half years.
Junaed Dar, 47, arrived at Heathrow Airport three hours before his shift so he could help Michael Williams, 39, and Jessica Waldron, 38, import 22kg of the drug. Wearing his security uniform he collected an airport vehicle and drove to Terminal 2B to meet Michael Williams, 39, and Jessica Waldron, 38, who were due to land on a flight from Bogota on December 14, 2019. The couple were carrying cocaine in their checked-in baggage but did not know Colombian police had searched their bags and removed the drugs.
At Bogota Airport police had removed the packages of cocaine and replaced them with blocks of wood before tipping off officers from the National Crime Agency in the UK. It comes after a mum left 16-month-old home alone to die when she went on holiday.
Once the couple had retrieved their bags, Dar escorted them to the toilets where he took the bags, got in his vehicle and was about to drive away when he was arrested by NCA Officers, MyLondon reports.
Williams and Waldron, of Dudley, West Midlands, were arrested by Border Force officers working with the NCA as they tried to leave the airport. They were each jailed for six years and eight months in 2022 for attempting to import Class A drugs.
Dar, of Slough, Berkshire, was convicted of attempting to smuggle Class A drugs and jailed for 16-and-a-half years at Kingston Crown Court on Monday. Alongside him were two other members of the drug trafficking group. Ruford Davis, 55, and David Farquharson, 53, took part in the organisation of the drug couriers' outward and return journeys.
When the drug couriers landed, the duo both sent Waldron identical screenshots from encrypted mobile devices of instructions for meeting Dar. Davis, of Dudley and Farquharson, of Wednesbury, West Midlands, were both sentenced to 14-and-a-half years.
Mark Abbott, NCA operations manager, said: "Dar committed a gross betrayal of trust by playing a crucial role in this conspiracy which started in South America and would have ended with violent street gangs in UK towns and cities.
"Organised crime groups need corrupt insiders like Dar to help move illegal commodities. As an airport security manager, he had the access and ability to move drugs so they might not be stopped.
"Heathrow Airport fully supported the operation along with Border Force and together we continue to combat the threat of Class A drugs being smuggled this way."
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