It was one of the most audacious smuggling schemes British police have uncovered: tonnes of cocaine buried inside wheels of cheese, shipped through Dover as ordinary food freight and driven around northern England in refrigerated lorries. This week the final members of the gang behind it began learning how long they will spend behind bars.
Seven more people were sentenced at Leeds Crown Court this week, including three on Friday, 30 October, bringing to an end the bulk of a case in which 18 people were convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine across two trials. Police say the network moved around 4.5 tonnes of the drug, with a street value of more than £450 million (roughly €515 million).
The great cheese con
Between December 2022 and April 2023, the gang imported some 123,568kg of cheese, according to reports of the case. The consignments arrived at the port of Dover and were taken to a legitimate distribution centre in Derby, giving the operation a clean, commercial cover.
From there, refrigerated lorries carried the pallets to industrial units in Huddersfield, Cleckheaton, Halifax and Blackburn. Inside, the cocaine was cut out of the cheese wheels and repacked into cardboard boxes and bin bags, before couriers from West Yorkshire, Lancashire, the West Midlands and the North East collected the drugs for distribution.
The scheme unravelled in May 2023 when Lancashire Police raided the Blackburn unit and found 217kg of cocaine, with two “bricks” hidden in each cheese wheel, some of them Gouda. Remarkably, reports say the gang did not stop: after the raid it switched to hiding drugs in chocolate spread and frozen fish mince.
The whole investigation, led by West Yorkshire Police, had been sparked by an earlier seizure of £2 million worth of cocaine and ecstasy in Leeds in 2023.
The sentences
Among those sentenced this week were Leicester men Harry Johnson, jailed for 16 years, and Darren Johnson, jailed for 15 years. Jordan Miles, 32, of Coventry, received 12 years and eight months, while Arran Gowans, 28, of Darlington, was given five years and 11 months. On Friday, Aaron McNally, 38, of Manchester, was jailed for 10 years and nine months, Brandon Eley, 31, of Tamworth, received 10 years, and Antony Etheridge, 70, of no fixed address, was given 18 months.
Eight others were jailed in May 2026. They included Aiden McCullagh, 58, of Brighouse, and Craig Goulding, 39, of Wakefield, who each received 25 years. Reports of the case describe Goulding as directing the network and moving money between its hubs, and say he was even paid to dispose of the waste food. Umar Farooq, 37, of Halifax, got 15 years; David Jackson, 48, of Manchester, 14 years and four months; Lewis Ockenden, 36, of Wakefield, 13 years and four months; driver John Whittell, 43, of Wakefield, 12 years and nine months; Craig Asquith, 44, of Wakefield, 10 years; and Ikraam Safdar, 44, of Halifax, eight years and nine months.
The man who ran the Blackburn site, Saleem Chaudhri, had already been jailed for 27 years and six months at Preston Crown Court in April 2024. He had agreed to move more than 2,000kg of drugs for over £70 million between September 2022 and May 2023, according to the reports.
Why it matters for Ireland
The case is a reminder of how organised crime hides drugs inside the legitimate food supply chain, the same refrigerated freight routes that link Britain, continental Europe and Irish ports. Gardaí and Revenue officers regularly report cocaine seizures in Ireland, and the methods exposed in Leeds, from front companies to industrial units and courier networks, will be familiar to investigators on both islands.
What happens next
Three people convicted in the case are yet to be sentenced: Mark Briggs, 31, of South Shields; Sammy Stapleton, 42, of Manchester; and Nathan Reilly, 26, of Manchester. Their sentencing dates have not been reported. Police are also likely to pursue proceeds of crime orders to strip the gang of assets linked to the trade.
Sources
- Brit Brief: UK narco-cheese bust: Gang jailed over £450m cocaine hidden in cheese wheels (30 October 2026)
- Coventry Telegraph (via Yahoo News UK): Coventry man jailed as gang uses cheese to import £450m cocaine (30 October 2026)
Featured image: Leeds Combined Court Centre (4th April 2018) 001.jpg by Mtaylor848, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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