Luke Campbell was paid £250 by a person he knew through work to deliver a Lidl shopping bag containing more than one-and-a-half kilograms of cocaine to Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales
A dad-of-nine claimed he was “stitched up” after he was caught by police with more than one-and-a-half kilograms of cocaine after accepting a job delivering a parcel, a court heard.
Luke Campbell, who served with 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan, was paid £250 to transport the package from Swansea to the seaside village of Saundersfoot in Pembrokeshire on August 8 earlier this year. The 34-year-old, who works as a delivery driver for DPD, had met the person he was delivering the parcel for through work but it was intercepted at the Pont Abraham motorway services.
Swansea Crown Court heard Dyfed-Powys Police received intelligence about a Mercedes Sprinter van which was being driven westwards along the M4 from Swansea. Officers stopped the vehicle at around 3:50pm that day and after searching it found a plastic Lidl shopping bag containing blocks of white powder, Wales Online reports.
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The bag had been placed in a compartment underneath the front passenger seat, the court heard. Campbell, who was driving the van on his own, was arrested and his iPhone was seized from the dashboard but he refused to reveal its pin.
Dean Pulling, prosecuting, told the court that while being taken to a police station in Llanelli the defendant was heard to say: “I’ve been stitched up.” A set of digital scales with traces of white powder was recovered from a wardrobe in a bedroom at the defendant’s home address.
A forensic examination of the contents of the carrier bag revealed one large package labelled “Elite” containing a kilo of cocaine of 84% purity, a half-kilo block of cocaine of 68% purity, and a 123g block of cocaine of 65% purity. The wholesale value of the drugs was estimated to be in the region of £33,000 while the potential street value was up to £187,700.
During police interview Campbell told officers that he had agreed to act as a courier for someone he knew from working with DPD. The court heard he said he was paid £250 for doing the job which involved going to the Ravenhill area of Swansea after work and collecting a package from a man in a BMW. He said he was given a postcode of an address in the Saundersfoot area and the name and number of someone to deliver the bag to.
Campbell admitted he knew the bag in question contained either money or drugs as he knew the individual was a drug dealer. In his interview he told officers the scales they had found in his house were used by him and his girlfriend to divide up drugs they bought when going to music festivals.
Campbell, of Carmarthen Road, Waun Wen, Swansea, had previously pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply. The court heard he has no previous convictions but has police cautions for common assault and for battery.
Matt Murphy, defending, said Campbell had an “exemplary record” but said his client’s experiences in the military “had a profound impact on his mental health”. The barrister said the dad-of-nine had experienced financial difficulties which caused him to go “down a road he knows he should never have gone and mixing with people he should not have been mixing with”.
Judge Geraint Walters said it was clear the defendant had been acting on the instructions of others and that he had been entrusted with a valuable cargo. Campbell was sentenced to 32 months in prison.