9237162463?profile=originalBy Gangsters Inc. Editors

A man who went on the run after he became wanted for his part in a drug smuggling ring was sentenced to 11 years in prison. 42-year-old Ajah Onuchukwu and his associates became a target of Britain’s National Crime Agency in 2013 when cocaine was found in a parcel that had been sent from St Martens in the Caribbean to an address in North London, England.

NCA investigators were able to link Onuchukwu and his group to at least 77 drug parcels that had been intercepted by Border Force, across 14 different addresses, between June 2008 and August 2014.

Drugs via Skype, WhatsApp, iMessage

They organized the transport of at least 4.8 kilos of cocaine and 210 kilos of cannabis over the time they were operating – worth an estimated £1.8 million if sold on the streets of the United Kingdom. The group utilized messaging services such as Skype, Yahoo Messenger, iMessage and WhatsApp to communicate with drug distributors in Africa, Asia and South America, advising them where to send the parcels.

After his initial arrest Onuchukwu fled the United Kingdom in 2015 while on bail and was listed as wanted by the NCA. He was captured on a European Arrest Warrant in the Netherlands in 2018 and extradited to Britain a year later. He appeared before Isleworth Crown Court in December [2020] where he was found guilty of three charges relating to attempting to import both Class A and B drugs.

He was sentenced at the same court on Friday, March 5, 2021.

Boss and others

Two other men were convicted in 2015 for their part in the conspiracy. 39-year-old Patrick Udensi was believed to be the leader of the group and was sentenced to 14 years for conspiracy to import class A and B drugs.

  • READ: The Untouchables: How Britain’s top gangsters got rich off armed robberies and smuggling tons of drugs

47-year-old John Arinze Nwosu was found guilty of importing class B drugs but absconded before trial. He was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in his absence and remains wanted by the NCA.

“The seizures we identified probably only cover a fraction of what this group managed to bring into the country,” Ian Truby, from the NCA’s Heathrow border investigation team, said. “Organized crime groups have been known to exploit infrastructure like the post and fast parcel system to bring illicit commodities into the UK, and cause further exploitation and harm to communities."

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