Gang who used bogus ambulance firm to smuggle 'colossal' amounts of Class A drugs jailed

Judge jails three men involved in conspiracy to deliver drugs in Yorkshire, Merseyside, London and the West Midlands

Olof Schoon was convicted earlier this year of being part of the 14-month conspiracy to sneak "staggering" amounts of heroin and cocaine into Britain. (PA)

A Dutchman who set up a bogus ambulance firm to smuggle “truly colossal” amounts of heroin and cocaine into the UK has been jailed for 24 years.

Olof Schoon pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to sneak an estimated £1.2bn worth of Class A drugs into Britain through Harwich and Hull using “a fleet” of specially-adapted ambulances.

The married father-of-three showed no emotion in the dock as the judge also jailed two other men involved in the 14-month conspiracy to deliver drugs to dealers in Yorkshire, Merseyside, London and the West Midlands.

Leonardus Bijlsma, who acted as Schoon’s right-hand man and used a rivet gun to conceal drugs inside ambulances, was jailed for 28 years, while Richard Engelsbel was sentenced to 18 years after admitting he acted as a driver or driver’s mate on 25 smuggling trips purporting to be journeys to pick up injured patients.

Schoon’s bogus firm, International Ambulance Team, owned a fleet of emergency vehicles worth €220,000 (£160,000) and operated out of an office which was equipped with a staff canteen.

Bijlsma, 55, from Hoofddorp near Amsterdam, Schoon, 38, and 51-year-old Engelsbel, both also from the Amsterdam area, were arrested in June this year near a Dutch-registered ambulance in a car park in Smethwick, near Birmingham.

National Crime Agency officers found numerous one-kilogram “wraps” of high purity cocaine and heroin with a wholesale value of around £10m hidden in secret compartments inside the vehicle.

Subsequent inquiries established there had been 44 similar trips using ferries linking Rotterdam and Hull, and the Hook of Holland to Harwich, that had taken place from April 2014, including one involving a “patient” on crutches.

Sentencing the men at Birmingham Crown Court, Judge Francis Laird said: “I am satisfied this was a highly sophisticated, meticulously planned and well-executed conspiracy involving the importation of Class A drugs on a truly colossal scale.”

He ruled that the drugs brought into Britain probably had a street value of between £1bn and £1.2bn.

After the sentencing, Andy Young, a specialist prosecutor in the CPS organised crime division, said: “The quantities are staggering – the last trip alone involved nearly 270kg of drugs.”

Press Association