Richard Baker News, North West
National Crime AgencyThe final member of a European-wide gang has been jailed for his role in plots to import drugs worth £20m into the United Kingdom.
Eddie Burton was sentenced to 19 years in prison at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday. The 23-year-old’s former partner Sian Banks, also from Liverpool, was jailed for five years earlier this year.
They were arrested after two lorries carrying heroin, cocaine and ketamine were intercepted at the Port of Dover in 2022.
The driver of the lorries, Latvian national Maris Fridvalds, was sentenced in March 2023 to 14 years in prison.
National Crime AgencyThe drugs found stashed in the two lorries weighed 307kg.
Border Force officers stopped the first lorry on 3 July 2022 and found 90kg of ketamine and 50kg of cocaine packed into boxes and a Lidl shopping bag.
The second lorry, containing 142kg of cocaine and 25kg of heroin, was intercepted on 12 August.
Forensics teams found Burton’s fingerprints and DNA on both drug consignments, and the adapted fuel tank.
Burton, who pleaded guilty to four counts of importing Class A and B drugs, was arrested at an Ibiza nightclub for unrelated drug dealing offences in August 2023. He was using an alias in an attempt to evade detection.
National Crime Agency investigators had initiated a manhunt for Burton, who was living between the Netherlands and Spain after relocating from the UK in early 2021.
The 23-year-old was extradited to the UK last year by the NCA’s Joint International Crime Centre.
‘Never been nicked’
Police said Burton’s ex-girlfriend Banks, who admitted seven charges including importing Class A drugs and money laundering, was first arrested in December 2023.
She was described by police as being integral part of the drugs ring.
Officers found she had travelled to the Netherlands and Spain to meet Burton “on a monthly basis” between 2022 and 2023.
NCA investigators also uncovered messages sent between her and Burton on 5 July 2022 – two days after the first lorry carrying drugs was intercepted.
The messages indicated that she flew out to the Netherlands in late June and prepared the first shipment of drugs for transportation alongside him.
Two days after the two lorries were stopped in the UK, Banks texted Burton to say her fingerprints were on the bags of ketamine.
Burton replied: “You’ve never been nicked or had ye prints took anyway so doesn’t matter”.