drug-smuggling gang jailed

Eight members of 'Full Metal Jacket' drug-smuggling gang jailed for 121 years for £25m cocaine haul from Mexico to Yorkshire England.

Eight members of a drug-trafficking gang which flooded the north of England with £25million worth of cocaine have been jailed for a total of 121 years.
The men adopted code names inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s cult war film Full Metal Jacket to smuggle drugs from Mexico into Yorkshire.
Senior gang member Paul Robinson was known as 'Colonel' in recognition of his role, while accomplice Frank Babar used the pseudonym 'G-man' and 45-year-old Richard Stead was nicknamed 'Ten Seconds'.

The gang renamed Sheffield 'Saigon', Manchester was 'Hollywood', and Sheffield's Ecclesall Road - where the gang met to discuss deals and pick up deliveries of cocaine - was dubbed 'The Strip'.

Prosecutor David Brooke told a six-week trial at Sheffield Crown Court: 'They’ve been both clever and incredibly stupid to use these nicknames as they gave police a very good idea of the part each member played.'
Detectives used surveillance, bugging devices and intelligence to foil the activities of the gang, which was turning over between £400,000 and £500,000 every month at its height.
The men imported up to 200kg of cocaine from Mexico over a period of two years, concealed in the hydraulic arms of scissor lifts.

Police discovered parts for several lifts at an industrial unit in Battersea, London, and another unit at the Wharncliffe Business Park in Barnsley, where they also found a dust mask contaminated with cocaine.
The gang was captured after South Yorkshire Police launched a huge investigation in August 2011 involving several other forces, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and foreign law enforcement agencies.
They tailed suspect Carl Carlton in his car to a layby in Rawmarsh, near Rotherham, where he picked up half a kilo of cocaine with a street value of £40,000.
After Carlton was arrested police seized his phones and began tracing the rest of the gang, who were dealing in 80 per cent pure cocaine.
The pair involved in the exchange were acting for Stead and Robinson.

Several members of the gang lived luxury lifestyles, the court heard. One defendant, Michael Dyson, had to be repatriated from the Netherlands for the trial.
Stead brought kilos of cocaine, MCat and Class B drugs into South Yorkshire. He was secretly taped talking about selling drugs and the cost of barrels of cutting agents used to dilute cocaine.
Stead, of Wilthorpe, Barnsley was found guilty after trial of conspiracy to supply cocaine and MCat and was jailed for 21 years.
Seven other gang members were also sent to prison.

Michael Dyson, 41, of the Netherlands and Paul Robinson, 35, of Shafton, Barnsley were each jailed for 18 years after admitting conspiracy to import and supply cocaine and other drugs.
Brent Padgett, 30, of Barnburgh, Doncaster admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine and other drugs and was jailed for 16 years.
Four other men were jailed for 12 years each after admitting conspiracy to supply cocaine and other drugs. They were: Tristan Clarke, 28, of Sheffield, Joseph Fawcett, 26, of Sheffield, Anthony Urban, 35, of High Wycombe and Frazer Guest, 35, of Chesterfield.
Babar, 48, of Richmond, London will be sentenced later after being convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine and concealing criminal property.
The court heard he bought a tennis equipment company from ex-Wimbledon champion Pat Cash and a Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Richard Farleigh whom he knew through playing chess. He denied it was a front for his criminal activities.
Another defendant, Marco Russo, 41, of Streatham, London was cleared of conspiracy to import cocaine.
Kubrick’s violent 1987 film follows a platoon of U.S. Marines during the Vietnam War.