On the surface, the shipments looked innocent enough—boxes of fruit, vegetables, and soft drinks trundling through British ports on the backs of lorries. But behind these seemingly harmless deliveries was a sprawling, multi-million-pound criminal network, one that authorities say trafficked staggering amounts of drugs into the United Kingdom over several years. Recent court cases have finally brought some of the masterminds and operatives of these syndicates to justice, shedding light on a web of smuggling, deception, and violence that stretched across Europe.
At the center of one of the most significant recent cases is Eddie Burton, a 23-year-old from Liverpool, who was sentenced on September 26, 2025, at Canterbury Crown Court to 19 years in prison for his role in importing drugs worth £20 million into the UK. According to the BBC, Burton orchestrated two major drug importation plots, working closely with his former partner, Sian Banks, who was herself jailed for five years in February 2025. Their downfall was the result of a painstaking investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) that began in the summer of 2022, after Border Force officers made a critical discovery at the Port of Dover.
On July 3, 2022, officers stopped the first of two lorries, uncovering 90 kilograms of ketamine and 50 kilograms of cocaine packed into boxes and even a Lidl shopping bag. Just over a month later, on August 12, a second lorry was intercepted, this time with 142 kilograms of cocaine and 25 kilograms of heroin concealed inside a modified fuel tank. In total, the two vehicles were carrying 307 kilograms of heroin, cocaine, and ketamine—drugs with a street value estimated at £20 million. Forensics quickly linked Burton to both shipments, with his fingerprints and DNA found on the drugs and the adapted tank. The driver, Latvian national Maris Fridvalds, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in March 2023 for his role in the operation.
Burton’s efforts to evade capture were almost cinematic. After relocating from the UK in early 2021, he lived between the Netherlands and Spain, using aliases and attempting to stay one step ahead of the law. But in August 2023, his luck ran out. He was arrested at the Pacha nightclub in Ibiza for unrelated drug offences, extradited to Germany, and finally returned to the UK in March 2024. Facing overwhelming evidence, he pleaded guilty to four counts of importing Class A and B drugs.
Sian Banks, 25, played a pivotal role in the operation. The NCA’s investigation revealed that Banks traveled regularly to the Netherlands and Spain between June 2022 and October 2023 to meet Burton. She was involved in preparing drug shipments and, on two occasions in August 2022, smuggled cocaine and ketamine back into the UK in her luggage after visiting Amsterdam. According to the BBC, messages between Banks and Burton showed how deeply she was embedded in the logistics of the operation. In one exchange, Banks mentioned her fingerprints were on the ketamine bags, to which Burton replied: “You’ve never been nicked or had ye prints took anyway so doesn’t matter.”
Banks’s criminal activity didn’t end with drug smuggling. During the pandemic, she was also found to be selling fake Covid-19 travel documents—another sign of the lengths to which this network was willing to go for profit. She was first arrested in December 2023, and in February 2025, she pleaded guilty to seven charges, including importing Class A drugs and money laundering.
“Burton, with Banks’ help, attempted to smuggle huge quantities of harmful drugs into the UK, believing he could operate with impunity overseas,” said John Turner, a senior investigating officer at the NCA, as reported by BBC. “The drugs, had they reached their final destination, would have had a destructive impact on our communities.”
But Burton and Banks were far from alone. In a separate but related case, the courts heard about another syndicate headed by Paul Green—known as “Big Fella”—which smuggled nearly £7 billion worth of drugs into the UK over two and a half years. According to Liverpool Echo, Green’s gang used a sophisticated system to ship cocaine, heroin, and cannabis hidden in lorries carrying fruit and vegetables. The drugs were concealed within “cover loads” of onions, garlic, ginger, and other strong-smelling produce to mask the scent from sniffer dogs and border patrols. Innocent hauliers, unaware of the true contents, transported these shipments to warehouses across the UK, including in Bolton, Wigan, Leeds, Sheffield, and Preston, where the drugs would be broken down and distributed to clients.
Paul Ruane, 60, and Andrew Reilly, 45, were two key operatives in Green’s network. Ruane fronted a bogus business in Warrington using a stolen identity to secure premises for drug storage, while Reilly acted as a courier, traveling to the Netherlands at least three times to help package and move drugs. Both admitted conspiring to fraudulently evade prohibition by bringing Class B drugs into the country. Judge Paul Lawton, presiding over their sentencing, described their activities as involving “industrial scale” amounts of cannabis. Due to time already served, Ruane was sentenced to four and a half years and Reilly to three years and nine months—both released immediately on licence.
The scale of Green’s operation was extraordinary. Authorities made only six seizures linked to the gang, including 8 kilograms of cocaine worth £962,000 hidden in ginger in 2016, 57 kilograms of amphetamine valued at £1.7 million a month later, and, in 2018, a consignment intercepted at the Port of Killinghome containing 336 kilograms of cocaine and 57 kilograms of heroin with a combined street value of around £27 million. Prosecutors acknowledged this was “the tip of an exceptionally large iceberg.”
The gang’s methods were as elaborate as they were audacious. Green used encrypted phones, front companies—some hijacked or cloned from real businesses—and even rented a hotel room near his home so his internet activity couldn’t be traced. The syndicate bargained on the sheer volume of daily shipments making it impossible for authorities to check every load. As the operation grew, so did the risks: a seizure of drugs by authorities was followed by the murder of Joseph McKeever, who was tortured and killed after being wrongly suspected of cheating associates out of a £900,000 cannabis shipment. His remains were found in a burnt-out car in Everton.
International cooperation was key to cracking these cases. As the scale of the smuggling became clear, British and Dutch authorities, alongside the National Crime Agency, joined forces to dismantle the cross-border alliances that enabled the syndicates to flourish.
These cases, now concluded in British courts, offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Europe’s drug trafficking underworld. The sentences handed down to Burton, Banks, Ruane, and Reilly mark a significant victory for law enforcement, but also serve as a stark reminder: for every load intercepted, many more may slip through, fueling a trade that leaves devastation in its wake.
