Seven more members of a drugs network that smuggled 4.5 tonnes of cocaine hidden in wheels of cheese have been jailed. The drugs had a total street value of more than £450 million and were taken in shrink-wrapped pallets of cheese to Dover before being supplied throughout the north of England, police said.
Sentencing at Leeds Crown Court
On Friday three of the 18 people convicted for their roles in the conspiracy were jailed at Leeds Crown Court. Four other defendants were jailed earlier in the week. A total of 18 people have been convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine following two trials, which began last year. Reporting restrictions were in place until the conclusion of both trials.
Eight people have already been jailed for their roles in the conspiracy, and a further seven sentenced this week. McCullagh, Goulding and Asquith were found guilty at trial of conspiracy to supply a Class A drug and sentenced in May this year.
Investigation and distribution network
The investigation started after cocaine and ecstasy worth £2 million was seized in Leeds in 2023, prompting West Yorkshire Police to uncover a sophisticated distribution network. The investigation team found that an organised crime group had imported 123,568kg of cheese into the UK between December 2022 and April 2023.
The consignments of cheese had been transported as commercial freight into Dover, and then to a legitimate distribution hub in Derby. Refrigerated trucks collected the shrink-wrapped pallets of cheese and delivered them to industrial units in Huddersfield, Cleckheaton and Halifax in West Yorkshire, and Blackburn, in Lancashire.
Two of the hubs were managed by Aiden McCullagh, and one was run by Saleem Chaudhri. Ikraam Safdar was shown to have rented a unit at a car wash in South Parade, Halifax, which was also used as part of the operation.
Couriers and arrests
Across these premises, McCullagh, Chaudhri and Craig Asquith would unpackage the blocks of cocaine hidden within the large wheels of cheese and package them in brown cardboard boxes and black bin liners. Once the drugs were ready for onward supply, a network of couriers from West Yorkshire, Lancashire, the West Midlands, and the North East would descend on the areas around these distribution hubs to collect their supplies.
At Whitacre Industrial Park in Huddersfield and Acorn Business Centre in Cleckheaton, Lewis Ockenden and Umar Farooq were trusted “lieutenants” who would meet the other couriers nearby and take their vehicles from them. At Yaseen Business Centre in Blackburn, Chaudhri was seen to operate similarly, driving out from the unit to meet couriers nearby and either taking their vehicles into the unit himself to be loaded or taking the drugs to their vehicles to be loaded off site.
In May 2023, officers from Lancashire Police moved in on Chaudhri’s operation in Blackburn and found 217kg of cocaine inside the unit, some still secreted inside large blocks of Gouda cheese. Each block of cheese was found to contain two “bricks” of cocaine, which had been crudely concealed by hacking a space into each one.
Sentences imposed
McCullagh, 58, of Brighouse, West Yorkshire, and Goulding, 39, of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, each received 25-year prison sentences. Asquith, 44, of Wakefield, was jailed for ten years; Farooq, 37, of Halifax, was sentenced to 15 years. Ockenden, 36, of Wakefield, was jailed for 13 years and four months and Safdar, 44, of Halifax, was sentenced to eight years and nine months.
Driver John Whittell, 43, of Wakefield, was sentenced to 12 years and nine months, and David Jackson, 48, of Manchester, was sentenced to 14 years and four months. This week Harry Johnson and Darren Johnson, both of Caledine Road, Leicester, were jailed for 16 years and 15 years respectively; Jordan Miles, 32, of Whinchat Close, Coventry, West Midlands, was jailed for 12 years and eight months; and Arran Gowans, 28, of Yarm Road, Darlington, Co Durham, was jailed for five years and 11 months.
On Friday three couriers were jailed for their roles in the conspiracy; Brandon Eley, 31, of Tamworth, Staffordshire, for 10 years; Aaron McNally, 38, of Manchester, for 10 years and nine months; and Antony Etheridge, 70, of no fixed address, for 18 months. Three other defendants, Mark Briggs, 31, of Norham Avenue, South Shields, Sammy Stapleton, 42, of Peel Hall Road, Manchester, and Nathan Reilly, 26, of Oxton Avenue, Wythenshawe, Manchester, will be sentenced at a later date.
