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A court sketch of Robert Dawes and his co-defendant Nathan Wheat on the final day of their trial in Paris. Photograph: Benoît Peyrucq/AFP/Getty Images
A Briton accused of being one of Europe’s biggest drug traffickers has been jailed for 22 years for smuggling more than a tonne of cocaine with a street value of €240m (£220m) into France in suitcases stashed on an Air France flight.
Robert Dawes, 46, was told he would have to serve at least 15 years with no possibility of parole over the 2013 drugs shipment from Venezuela to Paris.
Dawes, who had denied the charges, was arrested at his luxury villa on the Costa del Sol in 2015 after a lengthy investigation by authorities in Britain, France, Spain and South America.
“I continue to claim my innocence,” he said on Friday morning in his final statement to the special non-jury court in Paris. The case was tried by five judges who ordered Dawes and four accomplices – three Italians and one Briton – to pay a €30m fine.
“Far from a small-time fall guy, today we are judging men in the highest ranks of organised crime who supplied European networks,” the prosecutor, Isabelle Raynaud, told the court during the week.
Hailing the verdict, the deputy director of Britain’s National Crime Agency, Matt Horne, described Dawes as “one of the most significant organised criminals in Europe with a network that literally spanned the globe”.
“Dawes was prepared to use extreme levels of violence in order to further his reputation and take retribution against those who crossed him. Members or associates of his criminal group are known to have been involved in intimidation, shootings and murders,” Horne said.
The net tightened on Dawes after Spanish police secured a video showing him bragging to a member of a Colombian drugs cartel about his ownership of the cocaine found stuffed in 30 suitcases registered to ghost travellers. Spain extradited him to France shortly after his arrest.
Dawes had hoped to get the video dismissed on legal grounds, but a document submitted by his defence team in support of that claim turned out to be a forgery.
Dawes himself then surprised the court – and evidently his lawyers – by saying his claims in the video were “just a made-up story” intended to provoke the police into arresting him so that he could prove his innocence.
The court passed sentences ranging from five to 13 years for four accomplices: Briton Nathan Wheat, and Vincenzo Aprea, Carmine Russo and Marco Panetta of Italy.
The four were arrested after undercover officers tricked them into trying to transport some of the cocaine to Italy shortly after its arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in September 2013.
A sixth defendant, Briton Kane Price, was acquitted.
The discovery of the cocaine on a flight from Caracas caused a stir in Venezuela, where the interior minister admitted the suitcases had gone through security scanners that had clearly showed the presence of drugs.
Venezuelan police arrested 25 people, including members of the military and an Air France manager.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/21/british-cocaine-smuggler-jailed-for-22-years-in-france
