Drug dealers 'with links to Albanian crime gang' smuggled in £11m of cocaine with banana shipment

A high-level drug dealer police said to have had links to an Albanian crime gang has been jailed over a plot to smuggle 139 kilos of cocaine worth £11m into the UK - hidden in a consignment of bananas.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said Robert Ball, from Trafford, 'oversaw the nuts and bolts' of the conspiracy on the ground together with an accomplice, Mirgent Shahu. Four members of the organised crime group, including Ball, have now been jailed.

All four were captured on covert surveillance as gang members ripped open the roof of a shipping container they thought the smuggled drugs were inside, but it was empty and police pounced.

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The NCA said its investigators had previously removed the drugs then tracked the container straight to the gang to make the arrests in April, 2022. The container had arrived from Ecuador and was searched at London Gateway port.

Ball, 59, from Hasty Lane in Altrincham, has now been jailed for 18 years. Together with Shahu he denied a cocaine importation offence, but both men were convicted by a jury at Warwick Crown Court in May this year and sentenced at the same court on Wednesday.

The NCA said in a statement: "Border Force officers found a number of cocaine packages in the roof area. These were removed and the container was resealed.

"A few days later Ball, who was later found to be acting on behalf of an Albanian organised crime group, contacted the shipping line to ask them to release four containers, including the one he thought contained the drugs."

Ball is then said to have arranged