Smugglers' new methods

Gangs are using "ingenious" new smuggling methods to traffic crack cocaine into Britain.

Police today released pictures of a cardboard box which had a kilogram of crack cocaine, worth nearly £80,000, inserted into its lining.

The package was sent by courier from Jamaica to an address in Clapham, but was intercepted at Stansted during a routine customs search. The smugglers had filled 600 drinking straws with the drug and inserted them into the corrugated lining of the box, which was packed with tourist trinkets.

Detectives warn gangs are smuggling large quantities of Class-A drugs into Britain using legitimate courier firms. The method allows smugglers to follow the delivery of contraband using internet "track and trace" services offered by firms such as DHL, UPS and Federal Express.

A barcode on each package provides information on its location, and by logging on to a computer drug traffickers can follow the progress of their goods around the world.

The images of the cardboard box were released today after two men were jailed for trying to possess crack cocaine.

Phillip Cummings, 37, of Leyton, and Kenneth Noakes, 50, of Stoke Newington, were arrested after collecting the box from a house in Cato Road, Clapham. Police followed the package, sent by Federal Express to the address, where Noakes signed for it under a false name while Cummings waited in a car.

At Kingston Crown Court, the men pleaded guilty to the offence. Noakes was jailed for five years, Cummings for six. The conviction last month was the first by an elite squad of police and customs officers called the Middle Market Drugs Project, which targets the middlemen who pass drugs from traffickers to street dealers.

Head of the squad, Detective Superintendent Steve Dann, said of the cardboard box ruse: "This is the first time this ingenious method has been discovered in Britain."

So far, the Middle Market squad has charged 40 people and seized more than ?10million worth of drugs.