Yahoo News Belgian pilot, 65, faces jail for dropping more than £2.5m of cocaine over Kent countryside
A pilot from Belgium is facing jail for dropping more than £2.5 million of cocaine into the Kent countryside from his light aircraft.
Rudi Sels, 65, from Balen, near Antwerp, was extradited to face a charge of conspiracy to smuggle 31kg of the class A drug into Britain.
The National Crime Agency had the sophisticated operation under surveillance and watched as Sels and other plotters “scoped” out the airdrop site in advance.
Following the delivery in June last year, barrels containing cocaine were seized from a Faversham builders’ yard.
At a hearing at the Old Bailey, Sels pleaded guilty to his involvement in the smuggling plot.
Three British men have already received lengthy prison sentences for their roles.
Prosecutor Adrian Flasher said Sels was under surveillance when he met two of the UK plotters at the Golden Lion pub in Rochester. He went with them on a “scoping trip” to arrange the drop in a field on June 23 last year.
The former Belgian army serviceman was seen loading up his plane in Belgium bound for Le Touquet in France. Officers observed canisters wrapped in tape dropped out over Kent and picked up in a Land Rover.
MOST POPULAR STORIES ON YAHOO UK
Will Donald Trump get an invite to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding?
Tiny attraction in Sports Direct carpark is dubbed ‘Britain’s worst ice rink’ by parents
Sadiq Khan to BAN fast food chains within 400m of London schools
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia vows to rid the world of Islamic terrorism
More than 200,000 people tried to buy a gun in the Black Friday sales
Mr Flasher said it was a “carefully planned and sophisticated” plot.
In January, co-defendants Andrew Barrett, 42, of Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, was jailed for 16 years, Michael Mealing, 42, of Corsham, Wiltshire, received 12-and-a-half years, and Jonathan Hart, 61, of no fixed address, was handed 10 years and nine months at the Old Bailey.
The court heard that Sels had been given a suspended prison sentence in Belgium for possession of cannabis and having a weapon some six months before the cocaine plot.
In January 2015, police had raided his home and found 103 cannabis plants, scales, bags and a lecture on cultivating the drug as well as a forbidden weapon.
Rupert Hallowes, mitigating, told how Sels had a “colourful career” as a top helicopter pilot.
Previously, he flew high level dignities around the world and during the Cold War, he had been sent on secret missions with the SAS, he said.
The defendant, who lost his wife eight years ago, retired on an army pension but continued to fly commercially.
Mr Hallowes suggested Sels may have embarked on the plot because he “got bored”.
Judge Mark Dennis QC will sentence Sels later.
