Tale of dog cut open to smuggle drugs

This is Rex, the golden labrador used in one of the most callous and cynical drug-smuggling plots ever conceived.

Smugglers surgically implanted a total of 21 canisters of cocaine - worth £110,000 - into the stomachs of Rex and another labrador called Frispa.

The plot was only foiled when airport customs officers noticed the dogs behaving strangely and set up a sting operation to catch the gang.

Rex is alive and well and living at a secret address in Holland.

But Frispa did not make it - the canisters implanted in him had become fused to his internal organs and he had to be put down.

Meanwhile, the two smugglers behind the scheme have both been given lengthy jail sentences.

Gregory Graham, 27 - the "prime mover" in the plot - was jailed for 10 years. His accomplice Kaye Chapman, 21, who acted as the scheme's " administrator", was given a seven-year sentence.

Their plan was to cut the dogs open to retrieve the drugs once they reached Britain, which would have meant certain death for the labradors, a court heard.

But a sharp-eyed customs officer at Schipol airport, Amsterdam, became suspicious when he noticed that the dogs - which arrived on a Martinair flight from Colombia last September - were behaving oddly.

The black labrador, Frispa, was shy and had trouble standing up, while Rex was acting aggressively, Norwich Crown Court was told.

A vet was called in to examine the dogs and 11 canisters of cocaine, each three inches long, were found inside Rex's abdominal cavity.

When Frispa was examined a further 10 canisters were found, bringing the haul of cocaine to 1.13 kilograms.

Police believe the operation to implant them was carried out by a vet in South America.

After the dogs were operated on to remove the canisters and Frispa was put down, a sting operation was set up to snare the gang.

An undercover police officer posing as a cargo handler convinced the gang the dogs would soon be arriving at Stansted. While arranging for the animals to be collected the officer, known as "Tom", spoke to a woman calling herself Kerry Williams. This - the prosecution said - was in fact Chapman.

The court heard "Tom" telephoned "Kerry Williams" and told her both dogs had died. She told him she would like the bodies back so she could bury them. Although Chapman never went to Stansted to pick up the dogs, she was arrested last October.

She and Graham were found guilty of conspiring to smuggle cocaine after a three-week trial at Norwich Crown Court in July. The court heard that Graham, a chef from Harrow, set up the deal and recruited Chapman, also of Harrow, to help collect the dogs.

Judge Peter Jacobs, sentencing them at King's Lynn Crown Court this week, told Chapman: "It is obvious it was a wellthoughtout arrangement."

Efforts are still being made by police to trace the Colombian end of the operation, including the person who operated on the labradors. Police had been keen to bring Rex to Britain to have the option of producing the animal as evidence at the trial. The Dutch authorities refused on the grounds that Rex had suffered enough.