The gang member moaned: ‘I’m out pal, done and dusted, I’m not being treated like a t*** anymore’
A gang member ranted “I’m not being treated like a t*** anymore” and called his boss a “clown” as their plot to smuggle £140million of cocaine into the UK from Sierra Leone fell apart at the seams. The Merseyside-based organised crime group was led by a drug importer known as “Thor”, who hatched a plot to sneak a huge stash of class A drugs into the UK from Sierra Leone inside a shipment of flour.
Six men have now been locked up for a combined total of more than 75 years in connection with the scheme. They included a pensioner who was sent to prison on his 70th birthday.
Liverpool Crown Court heard last week that the National Crime Agency launched Operation Lemonlike after 1.3 tonnes of cocaine, worth £36million at wholesale but with a street value of as much as £140million, was seized at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk. The 1,306kg of class A drugs had been concealed with a consignment of garri flour which had arrived from the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown on June 8 2022 and was bound for an industrial unit at Bradley Hall Trading Estate in Standish, Wigan, via a stop in Morocco.
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Martin Reid KC, prosecuting, described Darren Schofield, of St Philip’s Avenue in Litherland, as a “a leading member of a Merseyside-based crime group” and “responsible for the overall coordination of the importation”, which was foiled when the huge haul was intercepted by the UK Border Force. The 45-year-old, who has no previous convictions, was nicknamed “Thor” by his fellow gang members, apparently owing to his long, flowing locks.
Stephen Martland, of Lakeland Gardens in Chorley, arranged for the rental of the premises where the drugs were to be delivered and was also involved in sourcing chemicals which would enable the illicit substances to be cut in order to boost profits. Paul Mockett, of Stump Lane in Chorley, set up a registered company, BH Supplies Ltd, to facilitate the purchase of these adulterants.
The court heard of an email which was sent to the firm responsible for letting out the industrial unit in March 2022, in which the defendants claimed that they intended to use the premises “for the storage of house clearances” and returned goods from Amazon and Argos. A sum of £3,600 would subsequently be paid into Martland’s bank account in the days after the lease was agreed, with this figure being the same as the cost of hiring the site.
Mr Reid detailed how Martland messaged Schofield in March 2022 as they arranged the lease of the industrial unit in question, telling him: “I’m in with the big boys. They have my trust up to now. Don’t want to spoil it, too much to lose. We’re so close to big bucks.”
Mockett expressed some concerns over their plans however, telling Martland that it would be himself who would “get a knock on the door if anything went wrong”. Two days later, the latter spoke of “the man in Spain wanting to speak today to sort things” and told Schofield in another message: “They want everything to be 100% or they will run.”
The following month, a man identifying himself as “Paul Jhones” – an apparent pseudonym – contacted a company called Yadco Foods offering his services for the importation gari flour, cassava flour and palm oil. This led to the business placing an order for 1,000 20kg bags of the former product.
Two shipping containers were then loaded onto the vessel JPO Gemini on May 6 under the guise of this deal. They would be unloaded at the Port of Tangier on May 30 before arriving in this country a further eight days later.
Mockett was meanwhile continuing to panic, telling Martland in a message on the day the boat set sail: “You know when they show you a lab with all the barrels of chemicals and microwaves at a big drugs bust, that’s what my unit looks like now. Wtf, I thought it was just a press not a whole factory.”
And his fears would come to fruition as matters began to take a turn for the worse when one of these containers was then held within the port as it supposedly required fumigation after being “contaminated with insects”. The other, said to be a “clean container” of flour, was delivered to the industrial estate on July 29.
Then, on August 17, the UK Border Force conducted a search of the second container and recovered its illegal contents. But Martland continued to source temporary labour in order to unload the cargo, still anticipating its arrival.
Both his and Mockett’s phones were used to contact recruitment agencies before one, Adecco, informed an email address under the Paul Jhones name that they could provide workers for the job. These members of staff were initially used to remove sacks of flour from the first delivery into a skip on August 31 and September 1 prior to the arrival of the container holding the “cover load”.
The shipment ultimately arrived on a lorry on the afternoon of the latter date, with an undercover law enforcement officer completing the delivery. However, the goods ultimately could not be unloaded due to an issue with a forklift truck and the HGV was taken away again as a result.
Mr Reid said that the conspirators then appeared to “realise that things had gone seriously wrong”, with Mockett messaging Martland, who turned 70 on the day of his sentencing on Thursday, stating that he “had to smash his phone up” as it was “the only link to that job”. He then went on to send an extraordinary diatribe to his co-defendant on September 19, telling him: “I’m out pal, done and dusted.
“I’m not being treated like a t*** anymore, having to practically beg for the pittance they pay us when they can be bothered. If I wanted to be treated like that, I’d just go back working for the transport company although I always got paid on time.
“I watched something yesterday morning, one of those cops and robbers type shows. Long story short, a guy who worked for a big firm shipping gear over was caught with 60ish boxes and a bit of brown. He got 16 years pal, 16 years. Can you just take that for how we get treated?
“I ain’t taking that for anyone, especially when I’m practically doing it for free. Only a moron does that. So yeah, I want what’s owed. I don’t want another phone, and they can find another sucker to do it. I cant believe I let myself be taken in and blagged by that clown Thor. Professional my a**e.”
Both men would ultimately be arrested on November 29. When Schofield’s then home on School Drive in Halewood was searched in September 2023, documentation revealed that he also controlled a property on Melrose Road in Kirkdale which was used for the mixing of drugs. Officers recovered noxious chemicals and large amounts of equipment including cookers, moulds, stamps and a press from this address.
Schofield admitted conspiracy to import cocaine. Appearing via video link to HMP Manchester, he was jailed for 20 years on Thursday – a sentence reduced from 30 years for his guilty plea.
Martland was convicted of the same offence after trial, while Mockett pleaded guilty to the charge. Appearing remotely from HMP Liverpool and HMP Preston, they were imprisoned for 21 and 13-and-a-half years respectively.
Sentencing, Judge Brian Cummings KC said: “Nearly all of you have no previous convictions at all or none which are relevant or recent. Likewise, all of you have presented personal mitigation which, in a number of cases, is supported by personal testimonials.
“I take into account all of these matters to the greatest extent that I can but it has to be said that there is a limit to the effect that can have in this kind of case, a case involving serious organised crime. The courts must have regard to the effect of drug trafficking on the wider population.
“A great deal of criminal offences are directly or indirectly related to drug trafficking – whether the trafficking itself, violence, persons under the influence of drugs or offences committed by addicts in order to fund their habits. All of that has terrible consequences, wrecks lives and destroys families.
“Most or all of you are capable men about whom much better things can be said. Many of you are family men with young children who will suffer from your absence.
“The responsibly for all of this is yours. You have chosen to involve yourselves in very serious crime knowing that severe consequences would follow should you be caught.”
