Manchester member of gang jailed after cocaine shipped to UK in banana boxes

A Manchester member of a gang that smuggled Central American cocaine into the UK in boxes of bananas has been jailed.

Christopher Sharrock, from Wigan, and the rest of the members - whose jail terms add up to more than 90 years between them - imported and distributed at least 1.4 tonnes of cocaine from Central America between March and December 2021, a court has heard.

The organised crime group used an encrypted messaging app and used pseudonyms such as Tunes, Bigwheeler and Rocket to communicate and arrange the movement of between 30 and 100 kilos of drugs at a time.

READ MORE Police spotted a man driving into Manchester - and immediately knew he was up to no good

They predominantly used hire vans to collect and transport the drugs across the UK, reports Teesside Live. The investigation by Kent Police's Economic Crime Unit first began after the infiltration of the encrypted messaging service EncoChat.

Analysis of phone data established on occasions they would use shipping containers to smuggle the drugs into Kent concealed amongst bananas. On one occasion a ship arrived at the Port of Sheerness from Costa Rica and in one of the containers of bananas, over a tonne of cocaine was concealed.

The following night, the gang arrived at the port removing the crates of cocaine and taking them back to a yard in Longfield for onward distribution. Images later found on a phone showed how these would be distributed.

The same day, local officers stopped a vehicle leaving the yard in Longfield. During a search of the vehicle they found stacks of banana labels in the glove box. When officers questioned the men about them, one of the men claimed they were collected by his son. The labels were later traced to the same shipping