A cocaine smuggler from Forest Gate has been jailed for ten years.
He was arrested at London Heathrow Airport minutes after he stepped off a flight from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
UK Border Agency officers found around two kilos of cocaine, valued at around �177,000, concealed inside the lining of his suitcase.
Burundian national Mussa Omari Bwereko , 44, of Marlborough Road, was convicted of attempting to smuggle high purity cocaine into the UK in May.
He claimed he had been given the case by a friend and did not know that it contained the drugs, but on Thursday (Oct6) he was found guilty of importing a class A drug by a jury at Isleworth Crown Court. He was sentenced the next day.
Siobhan Micklethwaite, Senior Investigating Officer from the UK Border Agency, said the sentence shows that the law enforcement agency are serious about tackling the criminals responsible for bringing illegal drugs into Britain.
“UK Border Agency officers work tirelessly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to detect and prevent drugs from being smuggled into the UK. “
*Anyone with information about drug smuggling can call the smuggling hotline on 0800 59 5000 where anonymity can be assured.
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