Flower firm linked to drug smuggling plot, court hears
A wholesale flower business with warehouses in the heart of Shropshire was used as a cover to smuggle millions of pounds of cannabis into the country, a court has heard.
The drugs conspiracy involved a "professional and organised" international gang led by a Market Drayton man and a Dutch national, Birmingham Crown Court heard.
For more than a year dozens of cardboard boxes containing cannabis, hidden among cartons of fresh flowers, were regularly ferried by lorry between Holland and Shropshire.
The court was told yesterday that the estimated profit for the 11-man gang could have been as much as £7 million from the drugs recovered by police alone.
Ashleigh Watkin, 38, of Loggerheads, near Market Drayton; Gary Davies, 37, of Overdale, Telford, formerly of Market Drayton; David Thompson, 42, of Laburnam Avenue, Cannock; and Stuart Grant, 42, of Deansfield Road, Bearwood, all deny being involved in the conspiracy to smuggle cannabis into the UK between November 2011 and February 2013.
Watkin and Davies also deny being involved in the supply of cannabis.
Mr Darron Whitehead, prosecuting, said there was no dispute that there was a criminal conspiracy to smuggle cannabis into the UK .
He said Baan Flower Trading, co-owned by Baan Klootwijk and David North and run from a warehouse at Adderley Road Industrial Estate in Market Drayton, had been a front for the drug smuggling operation.
"The conspiracy involved the wholesale importation of skunk cannabis by a professional and well-organised gang and the distribution of the drug around the country," he said.
He said it was a well executed operation, involving the two ring leaders and a network of drivers and couriers, some working for other dealers and gangs in other areas.
The court heard that during a West Mercia Police investigation officers had obtained covert recordings of conversations at the offices of Baan Flower Trading, CCTV footage, police surveillance in Holland and extensive text and telephone traffic between the defendants.
The jury has been told that North and Klootwijk, along with two other men, have admitted conspiracy to import and to supply cannabis and three other defendants have pleaded guilty to supplying cannabis. All await sentence.
The trial continues.
