3 Men Charged as Police Find Nearly $100M Worth of Cocaine Hidden in Bananas

NEED TO KNOW Authorities seized 943kg of cocaine from a shipment container at Southampton Docks in England According…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #AndrewSmyth #classAdrugs #DanielDumitru #JoshuaBerry #NationalCrimeAgency #SouthamptonDocks #World
https://www.newsbeep.com/459810/

Gardaí part of international operation targeting money laundering funding Russian war effort – The Journal

Gardaí part of international operation targeting money laundering funding Russian war effort  The JournalRussian money launderers bought bank to…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #Gardai #IE #Ireland #Kinahans #NationalCrimeAgency #OperationDestabilise #Russia
https://www.newsbeep.com/263774/

«A #Cryptocurrency backed by 1 of #NigelFarage’s biggest donors has been used 2 help #Russia fight its war against #Ukraine, Brit investigators say

#NationalCrimeAgency has spent 4 yrs trying 2 crack multibillion-$$ scheme that exchanges cash from #drug & #gun sales in #UK 4 #crypto, #DigitalTokens designed 2 hide their users’ identities

Scheme has enabld “sanctions evasions & highest levls of #OrganisedCrime, incl providing #MoneyLaundering services 2 Russian state”»

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/21/cryptocurrency-farage-donor-used-for-russian-war-effort

Swansea man linked to transatlantic yacht cocaine plot as crime group jailed

Karl Richter, 52, of Fourth Avenue, Clase, Swansea, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to evade the prohibition on the importation of cannabis from South Africa. He was part of an organised crime group (OCG) led by Lee McClenaghan, 57, from Chelmsford, and Lea Talbot, 55, from Chadwell St Mary, who also plotted to bring 600 kilos of cocaine into Europe on a yacht competing in the annual St Lucia to Lagos race.

The group used the encrypted EncroChat platform to plan the Class A drug shipment, with Talbot travelling to meet Venezuelan cartel bosses in preparation. The race was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, but the OCG switched to other smuggling methods, including hiding multi‑tonne shipments of cocaine in fruit and vegetable containers and importing cannabis from Morocco, Canada and South Africa.

Richter’s role was linked to a March 2022 attempt to bring 408 kilos of cannabis from South Africa, hidden inside a machine lathe seized at Tilbury Port. Prosecutors said he liaised with a South African contact and worked with co‑defendant Kane Ward, 60, from Upminster, to help organise the importation.

The consignment was arranged by McClenaghan, with assistance from Daniel Braithwaite, 61, from Westcliff‑on‑Sea, and Paul Tozer, 61, from Epping, whose textile business was to receive the drugs.

In a separate July 2023 seizure at Southampton, Border Force officers found 268 kilos of cannabis hidden in toolboxes shipped from Vancouver. That plot involved Talbot, freight forwarder Stephen Persaud, 41, from Upminster, food business owner Sundeep Grewal, 37, from Grays, and Tozer again.

At Chelmsford Crown Court on 10 September, McClenaghan, Talbot, Braithwaite, yacht skipper Ian Magee, 68, from Chelmsford, John Campbell, 69, from London, and Ward were jailed for a combined total of more than 111 years.

Richter is due to be sentenced on 16 October.

Detective Inspector Richard Smith, from the Organised Crime Partnership, said:

“The cocaine smuggling plan conceived by McClenaghan and Talbot was daring and would have been incredibly lucrative had it succeeded. Its failure deprived organised criminals of the profits this large amount of cocaine would have generated, and prevented communities suffering the violence and exploitation associated with it.

Undeterred, this OCG diversified into importing huge quantities of cannabis, operations which McClenaghan controlled at every level. The work undertaken by the Organised Crime Partnership, along with the vigilance of Border Force officers at Tilbury and Southampton, stopped these smuggling attempts in their tracks.”

The investigation formed part of Operation Venetic, the UK’s law enforcement response to the takedown of the EncroChat service in 2020.

#Cannabis #Clase #drugs #EncroChat #gang #NationalCrimeAgency #OperationVenetic #organisedCrime #SouthAfrica #TilburyPort

UK Charges Four in ‘Scattered Spider’ Ransom Group

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/07/uk-charges-four-in-scattered-spider-ransom-group/

#NationalCrimeAgency #Ne'er-Do-WellNews #OwenDavidFlowers #ScatteredSpider #Marks&Spencer #StarFraudChat #AllisonNixon #ThalhaJubair #Ransomware #Co-opGroup #Earth2Star #MGMCasino #Everlynn #Operator #Asyntax #Harrods #LAPSUS$ #Amtrak #Doxbin #bo764 #fbi

Maesteg man jailed for manufacturing and selling poisonous diet pills

DNP, which stands for 2,4-Dinitrophenol, is an industrial chemical that has been illegally sold as a diet pill for weight loss. DNP is poisonous to humans and has been banned for human consumption in the United Kingdom. It can cause death, as well as other serious physical side effects.  

Kyle Enos, 33, was arrested by officers from Tarian, the Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU) for southern Wales, in July 2024 after information was received from the National Crime Agency (NCA).  

Enos was found to have purchased the pure form sodium salt of 2,4-Dinitrophenol powder from China via the Dark Web. He then manufactured the pills using cutting agents and a pill press in his bedroom. He advertised the pills, and other regulated medications, on a website he had created. Enos would receive orders via email and ship the products, disguised as vitamins and minerals, both domestically within the UK and internationally.  

A previous conviction for the supply of Fentanyl, a Class A drug, meant that Enos had breached a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO) through his continued offending.  

Enos was charged with multiple drug offences and pleaded guilty at Cardiff Magistrates Court on May 1 this year.  

He was sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court today (May 29) to 36 months imprisonment.

Detective Constable Kieran Morris, of Tarian ROCU, said: “Operation Guazuma was a proactive partnership investigation with the NCA, the National Food Crime Unit, the Ministry of Defence, HM Prison and Probation Service, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority, and South Wales Police.  

“The swift arrest of Enos and the removal of these poisonous diet pills from the open market was our utmost priority. Enos was supplying the pills with no safety precautions in place, and no advice on dosages. This could have led to buyers becoming extremely ill or even dying.  

“Tarian ROCU are committed to safeguarding members of the public not only within our region, but across the United Kingdom and beyond. The sentence handed down to Enos today should serve as a warning to others engaging in similar criminality.” 

Head of the NCA’s Prisons and Lifetime Management Unit Alison Abbott said:“Serious Crime Prevention Orders are a powerful tool to help prevent those convicted of serious offences continue their criminality when they come out of prison. 

“This case should serve as a warning to others. As we did with Enos, we will actively monitor all those who are subject to such orders, and they will stay on our radar even after they are released from jail. Our work with TARIAN and other partners means he is back behind bars.” 

#dietPills #drugs #Maesteg #NationalCrimeAgency #SouthWalesPolice #Tarian

Two Swansea men sentenced to 25 and 26 years prison for £100m cocaine sea smuggling bid

Four drug smugglers have been sentenced over a plot to smuggle more than a ton of cocaine on a fishing boat off the coast of Cornwall, after a National Crime Agency investigation.

The crime group members were found with more than a ton of the Class A drug on board their boat, the Lily Lola, in September last year.

Michael Kelly, 45, and Jake Marchant, 27, pleaded guilty before trial.

Jon Williams, 46, of Windmill Terrace, St Thomas, Swansea, and Patrick Godfrey, 31, of Danygraig Road, Port Tennant, Swansea, were convicted after a trial in March of smuggling the £100m haul.

Shortly after 2pm on 13 September, the Border Force cutter HMC Valiant was on patrol off the north coast of Cornwall and deployed a RHIB (rigid hulled inflatable boat) to intercept the Lily Lola.

Williams, the captain and who had bought the boat for around £140,000 two months earlier, was at the helm. Marchant, of no fixed abode, was next to him. Kelly, of Portway, Manchester, was in the accommodation area and Godfrey was asleep in a deck chair.

The Lily Lola was taken into a secure port and the seized substances, which were divided into bales, removed and tested showing them to be high purity cocaine.

An electronic device that had been on board the Lily Lola was downloaded and some messages were recovered. These demonstrated the boat receiving instructions and co-ordinates from a third party.

Also, Godfrey’s phone showed he sent a message to someone saying ‘delete everything u see and not show anybody’. His phone also made the internet search ‘how long does it take a ship to leave peru to uk’.

A tracker was found in the drugs haul which NCA investigators established was linked to a user in South America

Williams, Godfrey and Marchant made no comment in interview and Kelly claimed he was on a fishing trip. But faced with the evidence against them, Kelly and Marchant pleaded guilty at Truro Crown Court on 15 October.

Today the men returned to court.

Williams was sentenced to 26 years; Godfrey to 25 years; Marchant to 18 years and Kelly 21 years.

NCA branch commander Derek Evans said: “The NCA works around the clock to fight the threat of Class A drugs which wreck people’s lives and devastate our communities.

“Working with Border Force and the Joint Maritime Security Centre, we prevented a huge haul of cocaine from hitting the streets of the UK and wider Europe and ensured organised criminals are deprived of the significant profits they would have gained had these drugs made it into the country.”

#cocaine #drugs #featured #NationalCrimeAgency #NCA #PortTennant #StThomas #Swansea

🚨 Det Insp Daniel Fenn, says some barber shops are claiming income of 💷 £100,000 to £150,000 a month❗
🗣️ "They aren't getting that amount of customers to warrant that amount of money."

🔗 www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3677xzk56no

#PoliceRaids #Barbers #VapeShops #CrimeGangs #Police #Kurdish #AsylumSeekers #MoneyLaundering #illicit #Cigarettes #Vapes #Immigrants #DrugDealing #NationalCrimeAgency #NCA #OperationMachinize