'Corrupt' Portsmouth dockworker and lorry driver jailed for 27 years for £118m cocaine smuggling conspiracy causing 'great harm' to Britain

Greedy Portico insider David Oliver, 44, of Cornwall Road, Fratton, was locked away for 14 years after playing a ‘significant role’ in the smuggling operation having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import drugs before the trial started. Lorry driver Ahmet Aydin, 48, of no fixed address, was jailed for 13 years having changed his plea to guilty of conspiracy during the course of the trial.

Oliver was emotionless as the sentence was handed down at Portsmouth Crown Court on Friday while Aydin waved to a woman in the public gallery who burst into tears outside the courtroom.

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They were jailed after more than 1.5 tonnes of cocaine – worth £118m – was discovered in April onboard cargo ship Atlantic Clipper by Dutch police in the port city of Flushing, part of the ship’s route from Turbo, in Colombia, to Portsmouth.

Authorities had allowed the vessel to continue to the Portico cargo terminal at Portsmouth. When the ship docked, border force officers replaced the cocaine with dummy blocks and audio equipment. The prosecution said audio devices recorded what sounded like barcodes being ripped from the pallets.

Judge Michael Bowes KC said the quantity of drugs meant they were ‘off the scale’ of the sentencing guidelines before he delivered his verdicts. He told the defendants: ‘The smuggling operation necessitated a person on the inside - a corrupt employee of Portico - to be a knowing participant of the operation along with a willing lorry driver to collect the cocaine and take it to the next destination. It is so serious that only a substantial and immediate prison sentence can be justified.’

The judge rejected claims neither defendant was aware of the scale of the operation. ‘Each of you took part knowing that this vast quantity of drugs would go on to find its way onto the streets of the United Kingdom. That’s why you both did that - for the financial benefit,’ he said.

But judge Bowes found that Oliver, of previous good character, played a ‘significant role’ and used his ‘skills’ and ‘position’ as cargo and distribution planner to search for pallets and notify others. ‘Your role in the conspiracy was to import cocaine into the UK on a vast scale. It is a grave crime,’ the judge said. ‘But for the detection in Holland it would have caused great harm to others.’

He told Aydin, of previous good character, his was a ‘lesser role’ while taking note of him distancing himself from the conspiracy to some extent, though this was ‘only after the risk of detection dawned on you’.

Previously jurors at Portsmouth Crown Court were unable to reach a verdict on Michael Jordan, 44, of London Road, Portsmouth, who is set for a retrial. Michael Butcher, 66, of Victory Avenue, Waterlooville, and Clayton Harwood, 55, from St David’s Road, Southsea, were cleared for their part in the drug smuggling operation.