Cocaine gang jailed up to 22 years for £20m fish market smuggling plot

Four men have been sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court for planning to import 600kg of cocaine via Billingsgate Market hidden in frozen fish shipments.

Four jailed over plot to hide 600kg of cocaine in frozen fish bound for Billingsgate

Four men have been handed prison sentences ranging from 13 to 22 years for conspiring to smuggle more than £20m worth of cocaine into London concealed inside frozen fish, The Independent reports.

The group planned to import approximately 600kg of the Class A drug from South America, routing the cargo through a legitimate fish business at Billingsgate Market. Sentences were handed down at Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London on Friday following convictions for conspiracy to import Class A drugs.

Samuel Tokeley, 57, residing in Alicante, Spain, and Nicholas Shilling, 63, based in Dubai, received the longest terms at 22 years each. Scott Richards, 51, from Wickford, Essex, was sentenced to 14 and a half years, while Scott Unwin, 52, of Dagenham, Essex, was given 13 years.

Detectives labelled the investigation the "Fish Conspiracy". Tokeley, Shilling and Unwin planned to conceal cocaine inside batches of frozen fish arriving from South America, using Unwin's established fish business at Billingsgate Market as the destination point, according to the Metropolitan Police.

The conspiracy was uncovered after law enforcement gained access to encrypted messages exchanged via EncroChat, a communications platform that has since been shut down. Decrypted chats revealed discussions about logistics, financial transfers, customs paperwork and contacts in Ecuador responsible for supplying the cocaine. The planned shipment was never completed, police noted.

Further intercepted communications showed plans involving cocaine, ketamine, large cash sums and cryptocurrency. Officers also identified separate schemes targeting industrial quantities of ketamine, with mobile phone records indicating plans to process hundreds of kilograms on the continent before distributing them wholesale across the UK.

Detective Chief Inspector Dean Grafton, of the Met's specialist crime unit, said the group was "operating on an industrial scale". He added: "The defendants believed that encrypted communication platforms would protect them as they discussed vast quantities of drugs, laundering criminal profits and exploiting legitimate businesses to facilitate their offending."

The operation was carried out in close collaboration between the Metropolitan Police, the National Crime Agency and foreign law enforcement agencies.

Source: The Independent