Criminal’s Misplaced Confidence Nets Cucumber Cannabis Gang 66 years

17 June 2010

Drug trafficker Paul Gurr and members of two networks he controlled have been jailed for a total of 66 years after attempting to distribute four tonnes of cannabis across England (17th June 2010).

Paul Gurr arranged the first shipment in June 2009, and then used a second gang to distribute another shipment two weeks later even though SOCA officers had intercepted the first and arrested those distributing the drugs.

In total, 12 people have been sentenced for offences relating to the possession and supply of cannabis. The cannabis resin, which was imported from Spain concealed in shipments of cucumbers, was distributed from industrial premises in Essex to buyers with connections to Essex, Kent and Manchester.

Gurr was identified as the organiser of both shipments. He enlisted Stephen Adamson, John Chalkley, brothers Ian and Gill Scott, and father and son team Gary and Robert Holden to distribute the drugs to various buyers. Using industrial premises in Essex, the distributors would collect the buyer’s vehicle from a pre-arranged meeting point, drive to the yard being used to store the drugs, and load the vehicle before returning it to the waiting buyers.

Paul Gurr, who arranged the importation of the drugs and their onward sale, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess a Class B drug with intent to supply in relation to both shipments and has been sentenced to seven and a half years years for each count, sentences to run concurrently.

A senior SOCA investigator commented;
"GURR was a major importer of cannabis who apparently thought that he had nothing to fear from SOCA. He was wrong. Had he been successful the scale of the importation was such that there would have been a notable affect on availability and street prices.”