Seven men who used a vintage Cadillac to smuggle nearly £2,000,000 of cocaine into the UK have been jailed for almost 100 years.
The 1953 sedan arrived in the UK from Peru on 25 January 2024 and was then taken to a workshop in Grays, Essex, where the drugs were retrieved by members of a criminal gang.
Their conspiracy began to unravel, however, when three of the gang members used a second car to move some of the drugs up the M1 motorway for onward supply.
Their grey Mercedes, driven by former Nottinghamshire resident Paulino Soares, was pulled over in Bedfordshire in February 2024 and found to contain 21 blocks of cocaine stuffed inside a suitcase.
Along with a large quantity of cash and mobile phones, officers also recovered travel documents linking Soars’ passengers to recent journeys from Mexico and – significantly – Peru.
They were Raul Ruiz-Jurado and Juan Pablo Valle-Tellez, who had travelled to the UK to extract and look after the drugs while bulk quantity buyers were found by their South American associates.
Cocaine found in a suitcase
All three men were arrested, and a major investigation started that would later lead directly to the now dismantled Cadilac and its seemingly innocent journey to the UK as a collector’s item.
Seven members of the gang have now been jailed for a combined total of almost 100 years.
Soars, already under scrutiny by detectives at the East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU), proved to be a key figure in the investigation, and was soon linked to others in the conspiracy.
In addition to Valle-Tellez and Ruiz-Jurado, Shimon Ofer Shriki was found to have travelled from Israel to assist in handling the drugs.
Bradford-based Mohammed Ilyas and Naheem Rafiq then bought several kilograms of the cocaine in early February.
Omer Cohen, meanwhile, was found to have worked with Shriki to find buyers for the drugs in London.
Thanks to this tenacious police investigation, the men appeared at Luton Crown Court across various dates earlier this year.
They all entered guilty pleas to all charges, including Ilyas and Rafiq who pleaded guilty at trial. They were jailed at Luton Crown Court on Friday 7 March as follows:
- Juan Pablo Valle-Tellez, aged 32, of HMP Bedford, received16-and-a-half years for conspiracy to supply cocaine and conspiracy to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation cocaine
- Raul Ruiz-Jurado, 29 of HMP Bedford, received 16-and-a-half years for conspiracy to supply cocaine, and conspiracy to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation cocaine.
- Paulino Soares, formerly of Nottinghamshire, received 15 years for conspiracy to supply a controlled drug of Class A (cocaine), conspiracy to supply a controlled drug of Class A, and possessing criminal property (cash). He was also issued with a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO).
- Mohammed Ilyas, aged 29, of Bradford, received nine-and-a-half years for conspiracy to supply cocaine.
- Naheem Rafiq, aged 37, of Bradford, received nine-and-a-half years for conspiracy to supply cocaine. He was also issued with a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO).
- Omer Cohen, aged 46, of London, received 15 years for conspiracy to supply cocaine, and possessing criminal property (cash).
- Shimon Ofer Shriki, aged 57, received 15 years for conspiracy to supply cocaine.
Work is now underway under the Proceeds of Crime Act to recover ill-gotten funds from Soares, Rafiq, Ilyas and Cohen.
Detective Chief Inspector Darren Brown said:
“This conspiracy is indicative of the work of a high-level organised crime group operating both nationally and internationally.
“What we uncovered was a very sophisticated operation [including] the use of encrypted communications devices, money laundering, unexplained wealth and various methods employed by the group in order to frustrate law enforcement’s attempts to tackle this criminality.
“But their efforts were in vain, as you can see by the jail terms handed out.”
