Three jailed for ‘unsophisticated’ drug smuggling syndicate

Three men have been jailed for a combined 17 years and nine months by Jersey's Royal Court for their parts in a drug smuggling syndicate.

A joint operation between Jersey Customs and Immigration and Avon and Somerset Police found the trio were part of a criminal network moving cash and cocaine between Jersey and the UK.

A kilo of cocaine with an estimated street value of £360,000 was found in a car stopped off the boat from Poole in July 2022 and a man from Bristol was later jailed. 

Operation Crimson then uncovered the three men organising the importation, and the movement of funds out of the island in cash and bank transfers. 

(Left to Right: Darren Fouracres, Anthony Clark, Adil Alime)

Bristol based Adil Alime - described in court by the judge as the 'crime mover' has been jailed for nine and half years.

47-year-old Darren Fouracres got seven years.

Anthony Clark, from Jersey, got 15 months for his involvement in moving the drugs money. 

The court heard that Alime supplied the vehicle that brought the cocaine into Jersey and funded the importers’ travel to Jersey.

Texts from Alime were found asking, ‘Do they have dogs? Call me ASAP’, sent as the vehicle that sparked the investigation was stopped by Customs and Immigration.

The operation as a whole was described in court as a ‘country mile from a sophisticated criminal enterprise,’ an ‘epitome of naivety and stupidity’ that was ‘doomed to fail.’

Additionally to the importation of cocaine, charges also concerned the movement of money between defendants, and the attempt to take it out of the island in cash. 

The court heard that ‘little was done to conceal’ the transfer and removal of funds from the island, again, calling them ‘unsophisticated’.

Luke Goddard, Senior Manager at the Jersey Customs and Immigration Service, says it's important to get drugs like this off the street:

"This was a particularly high purity drug, 75% is a high purity for cocaine on the streets here, we would usually see about half that.

"That could have a really serious impact and be life-threatening. 

"Second to that, it's the crime that's involved around it [the movement of drugs] that affects the way that we don't want a community to turn."

He concluded: 

“The collaboration between JCIS and SOCT was exemplary, and these convictions would not have been possible without it.

"I want to thank colleagues in Avon & Somerset Police for their hard work on this Operation.

"JCIS will continue to work with outside law enforcement agencies to disrupt and prosecute syndicates moving cash and drugs across our border."