A father living in a caravan in Swansea conspired with a contact known only as 'The Baron' to smuggle drugs from Wales to New Zealand, a court has heard. Gavin Smith planned to ship kilos of cocaine and ketamine hidden inside hollowed-out rope to the other side of the world, but the operation was uncovered after police arrested him for unrelated matters and accessed his encrypted Signal app communications.
Arrest and discovery
Ian Wright, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court – sitting remotely in Cardiff Magistrates' Court – that on March 28 this year officers went to Smith's caravan in Pontlliw to arrest him on unrelated matters. In the caravan, officers found a vacuum-packed bag containing a kilo of cannabis along with quantities of ketamine, cocaine, and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.
Also in the caravan were digital weighing scales, a coffee grinder containing white powder used to cut drugs, a drug press hidden under a bed, and coffee pods that appeared intended to store drugs. Officers recovered Smith's phone from the microwave in the caravan, and on the device found messages showing the 44-year-old had been dealing cannabis in half-kilo quantities over the previous 10 years.
Storage unit and crypto wallet
The phone also led officers to a storage unit Smith was renting at Hendy Industrial Park. There they found cardboard boxes labelled with different cannabis strains, containing 15 vacuum-sealed bags of cannabis, each weighing one pound. Police also found £678 in cash and a notebook with what appeared to be 12 random words, which turned out to be cryptocurrency recovery seed phrases. The wallet contained £5,763.
The prosecutor said the phone also contained messages exchanged on the encrypted Signal app with a contact in New Zealand known as The Baron. In the messages, Smith said he could supply kilos of ketamine at £2,000 per kilo, and The Baron suggested the drug could be smuggled into New Zealand inside shipments of rope. He told Smith to hollow out the core of lengths of rope, use an air compressor to force the ketamine inside, and seal the rope in bags with a vacuum sealer. Smith told The Baron that if the plan worked, he had a contact who could provide five or six kilos of ketamine a week.
Sentencing
The court heard The Baron asked Smith for his crypto wallet details, and on April 1 he messaged again to say the rope shipment had arrived successfully in New Zealand. The pair then discussed using the rope method to ship cocaine, with The Baron telling Smith he had a contact in Manchester who could supply the drug. A price of £4,000 per kilo of cocaine packaged and sent to New Zealand was agreed, with plans to send an initial two kilos a week, increasing to four kilos a week if all went well.
Smith, of Swansea Road, Pontlliw, Swansea, had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to export ketamine, conspiracy to export cocaine, being concerned in the supply of cannabis, possession of cannabis with intent to supply, possession of ketamine with intent to supply, simple possession of cocaine, simple possession of psilocybin, and two counts of possession of criminal property. He has four previous convictions for six offences, including violent disorder in 2009 and producing cannabis in 2020.
Hywel Davies, for Smith, said the defendant had mainly been involved in supplying Class B drugs, bar a 'brief excursion' into Class A drugs, which he was 'apprehensive' about. He said the dad-of-two was remorseful for the impact on his family and distressed at being separated from his children. Recorder Paul Lewis KC said he had not requested a pre-sentence report because immediate imprisonment was inevitable. With one-quarter discounts for his guilty pleas, Smith was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison. He will serve two-thirds in custody before release on licence. A proceeds of crime investigation will now be launched into his finances.
