A drug trafficking gang behind a failed attempt to flood the streets of Britain with £50 million worth of cocaine used a fake cop to help smuggle the drugs on board a private jet, Colombia has said.
The mystery man posed as a police officer to ensure the chartered jet carrying half a tonne of cocaine was given the go-ahead to leave the Colombian capital Bogota for Britain.
Colombia’s Defence Minister made the stunning revelation as he said investigators have obtained CCTV footage of the fake policeman at work and confirmed he is not who he claimed he was.
A suitcase containing packages of cocaine was found in a plane arriving from Colombia
Italian Alessandro Iembo (left), from Bournemouth, and Spanish 40-year-old Victor Franco Lorenzo (right) are among the five men charged with drug smuggling
This is the interior of the plane understood to have been used by the alleged drug smugglers
Five men – two British brothers, two Spaniards and an Italian – were arrested when the Bombardier Global Express plane touched down at Farnborough Airport on Monday.
Luis Carlos Villegas, speaking after investigators in Bogota searched the hangar the plane left from and seized CCTV footage, told a local radio station: ‘All the routine checks for for contraband including drugs appear to have taken place before the private jet took off.
‘The investigation is ongoing but the videos are indicating to us that one of the people who participated in the inspection was not a police officer despite appearing to be a police officer.
‘He pretended to be someone he wasn’t. That has obviously set off alarm bells and shown there is an apparent network of corruption which we hope to be in a position to fully identify within the next few days.’
The Border Force said that the drug was hidden in 15 suitcases that were found on board
Martin Neil is one of five men charged with cocaine smuggling after yesterday’s drugs bust on a private jet flying into Farnborough Airport
Border Force officers found the drugs after searching this aircraft at Farnborough Airport
Pictured: Another address in Poole, Dorset linked to cocaine smuggling suspect Martin Neil
It also emerged police chiefs in Colombia are sending an expert team of officers to the UK.
Colombia’s National Police Director Jorge Nieto is said to have asked his ‘best officers’ from the country’s Anti-Drug Squad to travel to Britain and meet National Crime Agency investigators.
Police in Bogota have obtained CCTV footage said to show the five suspects held at Farnborough Airport leaving the arrivals terminal at El Dorado Airport in the Colombian capital with 13 suitcases and taking a taxi.
CCTV showing the men arriving at a ‘well-known’ but unnamed city centre hotel is also in the hands of local investigators probing the theory the cocaine was picked up in a room there and taken away in the 15 suitcases confiscated by UK police on Monday,
Local reports said the five suspects spent just 30 hours in Colombia.
Detectives have already searched the hangar at El Dorado Airport the Bombardier Global Express plane used by the suspects was stored at.
The manager of the company which owns the hangar, which has not been named locally, has declined to make any public comment.
The Neil brothers – both bricklayers – told the court they lived here in Southbourne, Dorset
A source told respected Colombian daily El Tiempo: ‘There is a very delicate security problem.
‘The drug trafficking gang has a lot of offshoots and before taking off the plane was subjected to all the routine procedures used in these cases, including luggage searches.
‘It appears the hangar owners, as well as the Austrian owners of the jet, were taken advantage of and were not aware any criminality was taking place.’
The National Crime Agency said after the cocaine arrests on Monday: ‘This is a major seizure of cocaine, one of the largest flown into the UK by plane in many years, and this seizure by Border Force represents a major blow to organised crime.’
The five suspects charged with importing cocaine have been remanded in custody until 1 March.
They were named when they appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates Court on Wednesday as brothers Martin James Neil, 48, and Stephen John Neil, 53, from Poole in Dorset, Italian Alessandro Iembo, 28, from Bournemouth; and Spaniards Victor Franco-Lorenzo, 40, and Jose Ramon Miguelez-Botas, 55.
The brother of dad-of-one Jose Ramon, 55, from Valladolid, northern Spain, spoke of his shock earlier this week, insisting the money-troubled hair salon owner had told his family he was going to the UK for a short holiday and never mentioned he would be spending time in Colombia.
Stephen Neil’s ex-wife, Thai bride Ratklaw Neil, insisted yesterday/on Friday: ‘I’ve seen the reports on the news but it can’t be right.
‘What do you think he did? Did he fly the plane? Did he pack the suitcases? I can’t believe it’s true.’
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