Police say organised crime group would fly planes from Cherbourg, France, to southern England. Members of a gang involved in airdropping millions of pounds worth of cocaine into the British countryside are facing prison over the importation of illegal drugs.
Cocaine worth an estimated £4.2m was later discovered at a car wash in Hertfordshire and a house in Loughton, Essex. An investigation led by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) found the gang liaised with contacts abroad to bring in the drugs, with flights leaving from the Cherbourg area of northern France.
The planes would intentionally avoid radar systems and disable transponders that alert other pilots of their whereabouts, police said. Four members of the group have now been convicted, after Loughton man Tomas Bauza, 44, on Tuesday at St Albans Crown Court was found guilty following a trial.
Detective Inspector Daniel Barker, from ERSOU’s ROCU, said: “It’s clear that this group had put significant thought and planning into how they could best bring class A drugs into the UK, and they went to great lengths in attempting to hide their illicit activities.
“However, the tenacity of ERSOU’s investigators let to our teams uncovering vast amounts of evidence implicating each member of the OCG, and we were able to stop a significant amount of cocaine entering our communities.”. Police were made aware of at least three flights to southern England before immediately returning to France.
Each time, either Rolandas Bauza, 47, from the same address in Loughton, or associate Martynas Piecia, 37, of Thaxted, drove to the same location to wait to collect the parcels. Bishop’s Stortford man Arjan Lisaj, 33, who worked at the car wash, was arrested in September 2024 alongside Bauza and Piecia a short distance from the business in Spellbrook, Hertfordshire.
The three men pleaded guilty to being involved in the importation and supply of controlled drugs into the UK. Officers found two blocks of cocaine in the car wash office, while Rolandas was found to be carrying £37,000 in cash. Tomas was arrested at a raid of the Bauza brothers' home, where police also uncovered 54g of cocaine in the loft, and evidence the property had been used as a cannabis factory.
Detective Inspector Barker said police worked closely with other UK police forces and agencies abroad “to ensure that those involved in serious criminality such as this are apprehended and brought to justice.”. All four men are due to be sentenced at St Albans Crown Court on Monday, 4 August.
