Key facts
- Two men were convicted and sentenced on April 23, 2026, for their roles in a cocaine shipment worth £26.5 million intercepted off the Somerset coast.
- Five men were sentenced in 2026 for smuggling £1.4 million worth of ketamine via a fishing boat from Amsterdam to Suffolk.
- Eddie Burton was sentenced to 19 years in prison for his role in plots to import drugs worth £20 million into the UK.
- Sian Banks, Burton's former partner, was jailed for five years for her involvement in drug import plots.
- A total of 142kg of cocaine and 25kg of heroin were found stashed in the fuel tank of one of two lorries intercepted at the Port of Dover.
- Border Force officers found 90kg of ketamine and 50kg of cocaine packed into boxes and a Lidl shopping bag in the first lorry.
Two separate investigations by the National Crime Agency (NCA) have led to the jailing of multiple individuals for their involvement in large-scale drug smuggling operations into the UK. In one case, a sophisticated sea-based operation involving the dropping of cocaine at sea off the Somerset coast resulted in the interception of a shipment worth £26.5 million. Two men were convicted and sentenced on April 23, 2026, with one receiving over 20 years in prison for their central roles in retrieving and distributing the drugs. The NCA, working with Border Force and local police, used maritime surveillance to counter this method of trafficking.
In a separate operation, five men were sentenced in 2026 for smuggling £1.4 million worth of ketamine from Amsterdam to Suffolk using a fishing vessel as cover. This technique exploits the difficulty in monitoring numerous commercial fishing boats. The NCA's intelligence-led operation identified the vessel and its route, leading to arrests on the Suffolk coast.
Further investigations by the NCA led to the jailing of Eddie Burton, who received a 19-year sentence on Friday at Canterbury Crown Court for his role in plots to import drugs worth £20 million into the UK. His former partner, Sian Banks, was jailed for five years earlier in 2025. They were arrested after two lorries carrying heroin, cocaine, and ketamine were intercepted at the Port of Dover in 2022. The driver of one of the lorries, Maris Fridvalds, was sentenced in March 2023 to 14 years in prison. Forensics found Burton's fingerprints and DNA on drug consignments and an adapted fuel tank. Burton had been living between the Netherlands and Spain and was extradited to the UK. Banks, described as integral to the drug ring, had travelled to meet Burton monthly between 2022 and 2023 and was found to have prepared drug shipments.