Cocaine smuggler busted by £80k drug find at Gatwick Airport

Glynn Paul Davies worked with his girlfriend and business partner to sneak drugs into the UK by making multiple trips to Peru.

The 44-year-old was stopped by Border Force officers at Gatwick having travelling on a flight from Lima and caught with £80,000 worth of cocaine.

A search unearthed two foil-wrapped packages inside his jeans. They contained a combined one kilo of high-purity cocaine.

This discovery at the airport occurred in July 2018 and investigators at the National Crime Agency (NCA) later found Davies had been in contact with his girlfriend Sheena Spedding throughout the trip.

Glynn Paul Davies (Image: National Crime Agency)

Phone analysis showed the 24-year-old had organised much of his travel and hotel arrangements, and he had sent her a picture of the drugs on WhatsApp.

Officers were also able to find evidence that the flights had been paid for by a man Davies referred to as his business partner, Lee Hollister.

Messages between the two showed Hollister, aged 35, giving Davies advice, while his credit card and address were listed on the booking.

Searches of Hollister’s home address identified numerous items associated with drug dealing, including scales and bags used for packaging up cocaine.

Davies had also made six previous trips to Lima in the previous year, on two occasions accompanied by Spedding. Hollister transferred £26,000 to them while they were there.

Sheena Spedding (Image: National Crime Agency)

Further messages on his phone showed Davies had spoken to contacts in Peru about prices of product. Others suggested he wished to do business on a monthly basis.

When confronted with the evidence the NCA had gathered against them Davies and Spedding, both of Church Hill, Milford-on-Sea, pleaded guilty to conspiring to import class A drugs.

Hollister, of Nursery Grove, Pennington, denied being part of the plot but he was found guilty by a jury at Croydon Crown Court on December 2, 2022.

Lee Hollister (Image: National Crime Agency)

Appearing at the same court on April 17, he was jailed for 11 years.

Davies was sentenced to nine years and four months in prison, while Spedding got four years for her part in the offence.

NCA branch operations manager Chris Duplock said: “Our investigation proved that Davies, Spedding and Hollister worked together to import cocaine into the UK over a period of a year.

“They used contacts in South America to source the drugs, which would then be passed on to criminal gangs in the UK for onward distribution. No doubt they stood to make substantial profits.

“Working with law enforcement partners we are determined to target those involved in this type of criminal activity and stop drug traffickers before their product can reach the streets of the UK.”