Criminals cheered with beer on their way to smuggle £300m worth of narcotics (Credit: GMP)
A drug smuggler and his gang were caught red-handed with £300,000,000 worth of drugs.
Craig Parr was handed a long jail sentence following a covert police operation tracking a gang.
The criminals were transporting a shipping container filled with heroin and ketamine hidden inside rice bags.
CCTV footage showed Parr and his accomplices raise a toast with beer at a service station in Essex – all too soon as they were being followed by officers.
Heroin was stashed inside rice bags shipped from Pakistan (Credits: Michael Mccarthymet)
Parr’s task was to organise the onward travel of 785kg (1,730 lb) of heroin and 294kg (648 lb) of ketamine.
The drugs had arrived to Felixstowe, the largest container port in Britain, but their destination was a farm in Lancashire before being sold by drug dealers on the streets, Manchester Evening News reports.
Parr joined forces with Andrew Tait, man involved in meeting with and recruiting others to the plot.
The pair headed to a transport depot in Essex on January 29, 2020.
This is where the drugs had been moved to inside a container after it had been shipped from Pakistan by drug bosses.
The higher-up criminals had used a fake company with no real directors to hide their traces.
The gang had no idea they were being tailed (Credits: Michael Mccarthymet)
Parr was not accused of being responsible for the importation or enjoying wealth associated with large-scale drug dealing, but he had led a team from Wigan tasked with dealing with the shipment after it arrived.
Another man, Stephen King, was going to drive the drugs to north west in a hired lorry.
It was King, a professional lorry driver, who led detectives onto the gang after they began surveilling him back in 2019.
How the smuggling plot unfolded
After Parr and King were seen sipping beer at Thurrock services in Essex, they stayed in a nearby Premier Inn for two nights.
Police kept a close eye on the gang who were oblivious they were being watched.
Parr was pictured checking the load before King drove the lorry alone, his final destination being Moss Side farm near Bickerstaffe around 14 miles outside Liverpool.
Craig Parr was pictured checking the drug-filled lorry (Credits: Michael Mccarthymet)
But King stopped for a break at Keele Services on the M6 where the officers busted him.
They discovered stacks of rice bags with heroin stashed inside – believed to be the biggest drug seizure on UK mainland according to Greater Manchester Police.
On the same day, Tait was caught at a farm in Preston linked to the criminal gang.
But Parr is thought to have learned about the bust so he did not travel to the farm.
He was caught at a hotel in Newcastle six days later instead, where he told the officers ‘I’m f****d, aren’t I?’, MEN reports following his sentencing on Friday.
Parr and Tait finally faced the court after earlier delays in the process.
On December 7 last year, Tait, aged 42, of Tram Street, Platt Bridge in Wigan, was found guilty of conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs.
Parr, 42, of Barnham Close, Golborne, Wigan, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs.
They were handed 34 years between them – Parr was sentenced to 16 years and six months and Tait to 18 years in prison.
Andrew Tait (left) and Craig Parr were both slapped with long sentences (Credit: GMP)
Parr and Tait said they were offered £500 a day and £300 respectively to take part, MEN reports.
King, 44, of Pipit Avenue, Newton-le-Willows, was meant to face a second trial in 2021 but he died in January 2021.
In a statement to the police after his arrest he said he collected packages but denied knowing what they contained, the outlet reports.
DCI Tony Norman from GMP Serious Organised Crime Group said: “This investigation spanned over three months where we had specialist detectives working around the clock, observing the men go about their daily businesses, often doing very mundane tasks.
‘We knew they were involved in criminality, and that something significant was being planned the day King hired the HGV, but it was a case of being patient and vigilant to make sure we didn’t miss anything.
‘This discovery is the UK’s largest mainland drugs seizure, and there’s no denying the devastation it would have had on our communities had this product made its way to Manchester.
‘This proactive investigation meant we were able to stop that and prevent future harm.’
Three other men accused of involvement were acquitted at the second trial, which concluded in December last year.
John Hayden, 60, of Roman Road, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Ian Washington, 55, of Edge Green Lane, Golborne, Wigan, and Paul Adair, 48, of Beech Grove, Wigan, were all found not guilty of conspiring to supply class A and B drugs.
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