Men jailed for smuggling £2 million of cocaine into the UK hidden a vintage car
The 1953 Sedan was taken to a workshop in Grays, Essex before it was eventually dismantled (Image: Nottinghamshire Police)
By Callum Wright
Seven men who used a vintage Cadillac to smuggle nearly £2 million of cocaine into the UK have been jailed for a combined total of almost 100 years.
The 1953 Sedan came from Peru to the UK on January 25 2024 before being taken to a workshop in Grays, Essex where a criminal gang, including a Nottinghamshire man, retrieved the drugs.
After three of the gang members moved the drugs up the M1 motorway in a second car for onward supply, before the the plan started to be uncovered.
In Bedfordshire in February 2024, another car, a grey Mercedes, driven by former Nottinghamshire resident Paulino Soares, was pulled over and 21 blocks of cocaine crammed into a suitcase were found.
A large quantity of cash and mobile phones were also discovered alongside documents linking the passengers, Raul Ruiz-Jurado and Juan Pablo Valle-Tellez, to recent journeys from Mexico and Peru.
The pair had travelled to the UK to extract and look after the drugs while their South American associates found bulk quantity buyers.
Following the arrest of the three men in the Mercedes, a major investigation began that eventually lead directly to the now dismantled Cadillac that had previously been thought to be just a collector’s item.
Seven members of the gang appeared at Luton Crown Court at various dates earlier this year, where they all pleaded guilty pleas.
On Friday, March 7, the men were sentenced to a combined 100 years in jail, with the terms as follows:
- Juan Pablo Valle-Tellez, 32, of HMP Bedford, received a 16-and-a-half year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine and conspiracy to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation cocaine.
- Raul Ruiz-Jurado, 29, of HMP Bedford, received a 16-and-a-half year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine, and conspiracy to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation cocaine
- Paulino Soares, a former Nottinghamshire resident, received a 15 year sentence for conspiracy in relation to a controlled drug of Class A (cocaine), conspiracy to supply a controlled drug of Class A, and possessing criminal property (cash), as well as a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO). Police say that Soares was a key figure in the investigation while under scrutiny by detectives at the East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU).
- Mohammed Ilyas, 29, from Bradford, received a nine-and-a-half year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine. He had bought several kilograms of the cocaine in early February.
- Naheem Rafiq, 37, from Bradford, received a nine-and-a-half year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine and was issued a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO). He had also bought several kilograms of the cocaine in early February.
- Shimon Ofer Shriki, 57, received a 15 year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine. He had travelled from Israel to assist in handling the drugs.
- Omar Cohen, 46, from London, received a 15 year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine and possessing criminal property (cash). He had worked with Shriki to find buyers for the drugs in London.
Work to recover ill-gotten funds from Soares, Rafiq, Ilyas and Cohen is underway under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
DCI Darren Brown said: “This conspiracy is indicative of the work of a high-level organised crime group operating both nationally and internationally.
“What we uncovered was a very sophisticated operation [including] the use of encrypted communications devices, money laundering, unexplained wealth and various methods employed by the group in order to frustrate law enforcement’s attempts to tackle this criminality.
“But their efforts were in vain, as you can see by the jail terms handed out.”
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