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Gatwick worker jailed for smuggling cocaine
A Gatwick baggage handler has been jailed for smuggling class A drugs worth £700,000 into the UK.
David Fox, aged 65 from Brighton, used his airport pass to enter a baggage transfer shed and remove the drugs from suitcases to smuggle out in his own belongings.
He also removed luggage labels from passengers’ bags to reuse them on bags containing drugs.
Fox was caught in September 2012 when a rucksack holding 4kg of cocaine worth half a million pounds was sent to a different part of the airport and he was unable to get to it. It was seized instead by Border Force officers.
Fox, who is already serving 10 years for attempting to import 12kg of cocaine into Gatwick in May 2013 and 5kg in June 2013, was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court to a further four years.
His accomplices Stephen Chambers from Brighton and David Rowe from Lewisham, who arranged to smuggle cocaine from Ghana into the UK hidden in a container of fruit, and Gordon Wilkie of Brighton who was caught unloading the container, were also caught.
Chambers was sentenced to 12 years in prison, Rowe to three-and-a-half years and Wilkie to 30 months.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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