Revealed: gangs flood London with drugs hidden in luxury cars

Organised crime gangs are customising cars and lorries on an “industrial” scale to smuggle Class A drugs worth millions of pounds to London, the Standard can reveal.

The gangs are using garages in Europe “like factories” to adapt vehicles for transporting cocaine and heroin to Britain on ferries and through the Channel Tunnel.

A senior Met detective said police and Customs officials were discovering increasingly complex hiding places for drugs inside cars.

He spoke as a trafficker faced jail for smuggling 30 kilos of cocaine with a street value of £3.6 million to London in a custom-made cache in the roof of his Bentley Flying Spur.

Convicted Florentino Gonzales, 48, was arrested by a joint police and National Crime Agency team after he was seen exchanging the drugs for cash in the underground car park of top-end flats in Southwark.

The Belgian, who is of Spanish origin, drove from his home in Brussels to London via the Eurotunnel in September last year unaware that he was under surveillance by police.

Officers from the NCA and the Met’s Organised Crime Partnership watched as he gave packages to two men before travelling to the four-star Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf.

After police swooped on the pair and arrested Gonzales at the hotel, a specialist Border Force search team discovered the hidden compartment in the Bentley’s roof and found seven packages of cash worth a total of £250,000.

An examination of Eurotunnel records found that Gonzales’ Bentley had travelled to the UK 13 times in 2016. Investigators believe that the car was used to smuggle cocaine into the UK on each occasion and could have held up to 60 kilos of the drug at a time.

Today Detective Chief Inspector Spencer Barnett of the OCP revealed that officers were finding drugs in cars’ false footwells, dashboards or panels.

He said garages like “factories” were producing cars with false compartments on an “industrial” scale.

“We’re seeing complex concealments where vehicles are altered to hide drugs,” he added. “It is an industry in itself to build these into vehicles.

“A lot of knowledge and expertise is required to alter vehicles without damaging them. You have organised crime groups specifically designing and building concealments.

"These are more and more sophisticated, so in a routine stop they are unlikely to be detected.

“We are learning all the time and trade information with the Border Force about how they work.”

Last October two men were stopped in an Alfa Romeo car at Belsize Lane, Camden, and officers found a hidden compartment in the dashboard used to carry cash. Two men were later jailed for money-laundering.

In February last year NCA officers found five kilos of cocaine hidden in a space between the rear seats and the boot of a car in Barnet.

Last month a car stopped in Fulham Palace Road had six kilos of cocaine hidden in compartments cut into the side panels of the front doors and behind the seats.

The 54-strong joint squad targets top-echelon organised criminals in London and last year charged 144 people, resulting in individuals receiving 380 years of imprisonment.

Officers recovered 203 kilos of cocaine, 10 of heroin, 951 of cannabis, two shotguns and two handguns — one with a fitted silencer.

Detectives say most drugs are smuggled in via ports on lorries and cars, though some are landed by small aircraft at rural airfields or smuggled in on cruise ships.

Security agent Gonzales was yesterday found guilty by Blackfriars crown court of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. Two other men — Edwin Abazi, 31, of Hillingdon, and Bajram Elezi, 34, of Epsom — were also found guilty after the five-week trial.

Four others admitted similar charges as part of the drugs conspiracy. All seven face sentencing at a later date.

Andy Tickner of the OCP said: “By disrupting this network we have prevented a significant quantity of Class A drugs reaching London’s streets.”