A MAN has been cleared of smuggling cocaine with a street value of more than £2.6m into the UK hidden inside hollowed-out books sent in a package from Ecuador.
Felix Kalu, 26, also known as Richard Agwu, was unanimously found not guilty by a jury at Leeds Crown Court yesterday of fraudulently evading importation regulations in November last year.
The drugs weighing 2kg were discovered by a customs office
r
at Gatwick Airport inside three books in the package in transit via Barbados to be delivered by a courier firm.
Initially the package was addressed to a shop in London but the firm received a call redirecting it to a Samuel Jones in Salisbury Grove, Armley, Leeds.
The cocaine was replaced with salt and two undercover police officer posed as employees of the courier service to make the delivery to the address where Kalu was living and he accepted he signed for the package.
The cocaine seized was between 80-85 per cent purity and had a street value of £2,667,400.
Kalu denied he had known the package contained cocaine and
said he was asked as a favour to sign for it by another man, Mikey Roger, who was sharing the house with him.
He told Philip Morris, who was defending him, that he understood the package contained an encyclopaedia and maintained he had been taken advantage of by Mr Roger and was not involved in the smuggling.
After the case a police spokesman confirmed West Yorkshire police were trying to trace a Nigerian in his 30s known as Mikey Roger, who is thought to have connections in Wakefield, Leeds, Leicester and London.
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