Audacious drug smuggling via fake ambulances

Dutchman  and father-of-four Leonardus Bijlsma, 55, was found guilty Friday of operating a drug trafficking organisation across the U.K. Bijlsma used a fleet of fake ambulances to ship drugs from the south of England to the north and from the east to the west.

The gang used ports from Essex to East Yorkshire.

In June four men were arrested in connection with this gang's drug smuggling. Bijlsma was described in the Birmingham court Friday as the operations' 'right-hand' man.

Two other men pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing; they are Olof Schoon, 38, described as the main-player, and 51-year-old Richard Engelsbel.

The Birmingham Crown Court jury found co-defendant Dennis Vogelaar, 28, not guilty.

The fake ambulances had hidden compartments where large quantities of drugs were stashed before being brought into the U.K.

The gang also used fake invoices and patient details claiming they had transported patients to the Royal London Hospital but that facility had no record of any such patient transfers. When police investigated further the addresses, ages and names of patients were all fake.

"In total an estimated £420m of high-purity drugs with a street value of £1.6bn are believed to have been smuggled into the UK" reports BBC News.

Leonardus Bijlsma will be sentenced at a later date.

The operation was cheeky to say the least; during its successful operations dangerous drugs made the gang money but at what price?

Police officers discovered the ambulances were carrying packages of cocaine, heroin and amphetamine as well as thousands of suspected ecstasy pills.

The value of the drugs is estimated at up to £1.6bn.

More at the Guardian

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