GLOBAL ORGANISED CRIME
Duo jailed in UK for ‘cocaine oranges’ smuggled from SA after farmer unwittingly uncovers global trafficking web
A UK farmer once found parcels of cocaine hidden in animal feed from Colombia. This discovery led to two men being jailed in the UK recently for drug smuggling, including for a cocaine consignment concealed in a container of oranges from SA.
A farmer based in Somerset in the UK once noticed parcels, like ones he had seen in movies, in animal feed that arrived there from Colombia.
This led to him inadvertently playing a key role in the unravelling of a narcotrafficking network involving crooks who use shell companies, fake names, and ships to smuggle drugs into the UK from various countries, South Africa included.
Investigations into the syndicate started in the UK in April 2022 and recently culminated in the jailing of two smugglers there.
Anand Tripathi, 61, who ran an export and import company, and Varun Bhardwaj, 39, who worked with him, were sentenced to 15 and 19 years in jail respectively in mid-December last year.
They had faced various charges in connection with drug crimes, some linked to South Africa — via citrus fruit.
Daily Maverick has before reported on how drugs concealed in containers of fruit were sent from South Africa to India.
Read more in Daily Maverick: SA features prominently in criminal networks trafficking drugs in fresh fruit after raids in Europe, UK
It appeared the drugs were secretly slipped into cargo and that fruit growers and exporters were not necessarily involved in the smuggling.
In another case, that Daily Maverick also previously reported on, 49kg of cocaine was found in a container of oranges sent from South Africa to the UK.
A consignment of oranges from South Africa included 49kg of cocaine that landed in the UK in 2022. (Photo: Crown Prosecution Service)
Drug delivery bungle
This is where the case against Tripathi and Bhardwaj fits in.
What has happened to them marks drug busts where traffickers have been unmasked and held to account.
In November 2022 the UK’s South West Regional Organised Crime Unit released a statement saying that in April of that year, a shipping container that was transported from Colombia was delivered to a farm in Somerset in the UK.
Inside it was animal feed — and 189kg of cocaine.
It turned out that the container was not meant to have reached the farm.
According to a UK Crown Prosecution Service statement, dated 15 December 2023, traffickers were meant to have diverted it to a warehouse of theirs.
‘Like TV’
But the container was not diverted and landed on the farm, its intended destination, where “a farmer accidentally spotted” the cocaine.
“The farmer found plastic-covered blocks of cocaine with a street value of £15-million [more than R357-million] hidden amongst animal feed from Colombia,” the Crown Prosecution Service statement said.
“He was not sure what the items were but told police he had seen ‘similar packages on films and TV programmes which were drugs’”.
The farmer called the Avon and Somerset Police to report the cocaine discovery and investigations into it started.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Tik and cocaine worth billions found in consignments of apples, pears and oranges exported from SA to India
Seven months later, in November 2022, as part of those investigations, the 49kg of cocaine, concealed in a container of oranges from South Africa, was intercepted at the UK’s Port of Felixstowe.
Narcotics and cigarettes
Tripathi and Bhardwaj were among those arrested as police tried to dismantle the trafficking network.
The Crown Prosecution Service statement said: “The scheme involved the pair using their freight company as a cover to clear shipping containers that held drugs and cigarettes and diverting them from their intended destination to a warehouse they controlled.
“There they would be offloaded by organised crime groups.”
During their 71-day trial in the Isleworth Crown Court, it was heard that between September 2021 and November 2022, Tripathi and Bhardwaj trafficked 272kg of cocaine, plus 2,503kg of cannabis, via four shipments.
One of the shipments involved cannabis concealed among yams from Ghana, while another was the oranges from South Africa.
Aside from drugs, Tripathi and Bhardwaj also imported nearly 19-million cigarettes via three ships and concealed those in items including biscuits.
UK authorities said they thereby evaded “the £9.7-milllion excise and customs duty which should have been payable.”
Import-export company
According to a South West Regional Organised Crime Unit statement from December 2023, a company, Tatab LTD, a customs clearing agent based in Hounslow in West London, was linked to the drug smuggling.
Tatab Ltd facilitated the import and export of goods.
Tripathi was its director and secretary.
A LinkedIn profile under his name said he had been the director of Tatab since 2017.
The South West Regional Organised Crime Unit statement said that Bhardwaj had tried to distance himself from Tatab, however, he was found to have been the company’s operations manager who reported to Tripathi.
There were other clues suggesting Bhardwaj was closely involved with Tatab.
The statement said: “Bhardwaj also owned and drove a Range Rover with the personalised registration plate TA07 TAB (TATAB).”
It added that Tatab was one of several companies Tripathi and Bhardwaj had used to try and conceal their activities.
‘Smoke and mirrors’
“The pair played a game of smoke and mirrors — setting up bogus businesses and using pseudonyms in order to cover their tracks and distance themselves from the illegal imports.”
Richard Partridge of the Crown Prosecution Service said that along with other individuals who were yet to be arrested, Tripathi and Bhardwaj had tried to flood UK streets with massive consignments of illegal drugs.
“This conspiracy was only made possible by Anand Tripathi’s experience in importation and customs clearance, and Varun Bhardwaj’s willingness to assume day-to-day management of their operation,” he said.
“There were clearly others involved in the scheme who haven’t yet been identified but this successful operation and their substantial sentences serves as a warning that authorities in the UK work together to disrupt and prosecute smugglers.”
Tripathi and Bhardwaj were convicted of various crimes, including importing cocaine into the UK, in November last year.
While Tripathi now faces a total of 15 years in jail, Bhardwaj was sentenced to 19 years behind bars because he faced additional charges, including for failing to provide a PIN number for a mobile phone. DM
Read more in Daily Maverick about a recent cocaine bust in Durban: R151-million cocaine disguised in meat boxes seized in Durban in latest SA-Brazil bust
Guy should be given an additional 3 years for that moustache alone!
Ha ha! Absolutely!
Are they British or South African….or both?
NO THEY ARE SO-CALLED ‘IMMIGRANTS’ FROM PAKISTAN AND THE UK EXCEPTED THEM!!!!!
Actually they accepted them. If they had ‘excepted’ them, they would not be there !
1 farmer using his eyes ,kudos to the farmer
I don’t know if it’s possible to miss 189kg of cocaine, not exactly going to start feeding his chicken with it by mistake!
Reads like a Bollywood movie. Good riddance to bad rubbish though. Pity, our local authorities are so inept.
It wouldn’t come as a big shock to me to find that some of our authorities were involved in facilitating it. Customs and port management here are crooked like a paper clip.
YOU ALLOWED THOSE CRIMINALS TO SETTLE IN THE UK, AND NOW YOUR YOUTH AND YOUR CHILDREN WILL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES….THOSE SO-CALLED ‘IMMIGRANTS’ ARE ALL CRIMINALS AND ARE RUNNING FROM THEIR COUNTRIES!!!!
When the little red light is on, it means your caps lock is activated. Use it, or don’t.
Lol! I’m always amused at how strongly some South Africans feel about migrants in the UK when there are literally hundreds of thousands of South African migrants living in the UK (and elsewhere!).
Brings a whole new meaning to Vitamin “C” in oranges.
🤣🤣🤣
Classic.
Nothing like an orange for that “get up and go” energy!!
🤣😂
Hahaha
Costums in SA were also obviously involved
Fancy Dress???
Fancy Dress???
Could explain all the energy I felt after those half-time oranges as a kid:)
They must have stumbled across the idea at Loftus when someone gave them a brandy-infused naartjie!
ah the good old days concerts always went well with oranges spiked with vodka. always felt bad for the designated driver the next morning .
As a South African I don’t understand how we sent oranges to UK when it’s not time to harvest them. The whole of December last year not a single person in our country had had an orange. From a store or a farm. Or is this a one of the smear campaign against SA, because of the stunned we took against Israel?
The shipping container with the narcotics hidden under South African oranges were found a while ago — in November 2022, to be exact.
To be fair, there is at least one badly spoilt orange in the photos; perhaps they weren’t very fresh. On the other hand, it is not uncommon for fresh produce to be exported from SA at times when none is available for the local market. But I suppose I’d choose to sell in dollars or pounds too, rather than rands, given the opportunity; it’s simply more lucrative, at the end of the day.
South Africa the new Columbia, Mexico and Nigeria