From Bond-style cars with secret hidey holes to hollow gas cylinders, drug smugglers’ most cunning tricks revealed
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THE car’s glovebox is opened and hidden switches are flicked, then a magnet is placed next to the steering wheel, causing the front seats to rise upwards. The movement reveals a secret storage hole beneath, which stretches under the footwell. But this modified family car is not something from a James Bond film, but a smuggler’s vehicle, crafted to transport millions of pounds-worth of Class A drugs across the English Channel for sale on our streets.
![[Border Force regional boss David Smith with a haul of drugs found in a family car]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/port-dover-pink-cocaine-border-956071144.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
It is a sight all too familiar to Britain’s Border Force staff, who are encountering increasingly sophisticated ways of hiding drugs, cash, illegal cigarettes, guns and even people. Border Force invited The Sun behind the scenes at the Port of Dover to see for ourselves the daily battles its staff face to keep our streets safe.
![[Border Force invited The Sun's Thea Jacobs behind the scenes at the Port of Dover to see the daily battles its staff face to keep our streets safe]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/port-dover-pink-cocaine-border-956071174.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
The agency’s South East Regional Director David Smith said: “We’re always broadening our techniques to make sure we stay one step ahead of the smugglers. “Over the years, trends change and we’re always adapting to make sure we can find everything possible. Some of the concealments that are used to bring in illegal items are very technical.”.
![[Border Force’s Glenn the dog sniffs out illegal substances]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/port-dover-pink-cocaine-border-956071349.jpg?strip=all&w=798)
But thanks to its specialists at ports across the UK, Border Force is finding more contraband than ever. The first six months of 2024 saw 92 per cent more illegal drugs intercepted, with 22,719 seizures, than in the same period in 2023. This included 19 tonnes of cocaine and 412kg of ketamine, and the force has intercepted the largest batch of pink cocaine — a drug cocktail that can contain ketamine, ecstasy, meth and crack — headed for the UK.
![[Fuel tanks were cut open to reveal a stash of cocaine]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/port-dover-pink-cocaine-border-956071609.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
