14 TONNES of cocaine found hidden in wheels of cheese smuggled by gang that brought £1.4BILLION of drugs into Britain

Published 30 October 2026, 14:22

• Roughly a quarter of the gang's 100,000kg of imported cheese was actually cocaine, the CPS revealed in a post on X.
• After police seized 217kg stuffed inside Gouda, the gang switched to chocolate spread and frozen fish mince.
• Senior Crown Prosecutor Zoe Nixon called it 'an industrial-scale criminal enterprise' that fed up to 11% of Britain's cocaine habit.

The Crown Prosecution Service has released footage of the moment police officers discovered cocaine packed inside wheels of imported European cheese, as part of the prosecution of a 22-member organised crime group that smuggled up to £1.4 billion worth of drugs into Britain.

The CPS posted the video on X, showing officers cracking open cheese wheels to reveal blocks of cocaine concealed inside.

The gang imported more than 100,000kg of cheese from Europe between December 2022 and April 2023, and investigators estimate that roughly a quarter of that total weight was actually cocaine — between four and 14 tonnes of the drug in total.

The CPS put the street value of the haul at between £400 million and £1.4 billion.

Home Office analysis puts the UK's annual cocaine consumption at around 120 tonnes, which would mean the gang's operation was responsible for as much as 11% of Britain's total yearly cocaine intake.

The smuggling route ran from Europe by road and ferry into a legitimate cheese distribution hub in Derby.

Refrigerated vehicles then transported the consignments to industrial premises in West Yorkshire and Lancashire, where the cocaine was removed from the cheese wheels, repackaged and distributed throughout the UK.

In May 2023, police raided the Lancashire hub and seized 217kg of cocaine hidden inside wheels of Gouda.

After that bust revealed their technique, the gang moved to hiding drugs within shipments of chocolate spread and frozen fish mince, selecting those particular goods because their smell and density made them more difficult to detect.

Senior Crown Prosecutor Zoe Nixon described the operation as "an industrial-scale criminal enterprise which had been funnelling vast quantities of illegal drugs across the country."

She said each defendant had a defined role: "whether that was running the hubs, unpacking the drugs or transporting them to buyers across the country."

Analysis of text messages sent by one of the defendants revealed a clear command structure, operational security measures and direction from overseas, establishing the significant level of organisation behind the conspiracy.

Investigators combined mobile telephone evidence with other police tactics to trace contact between gang members and track the movement of the food consignments from the distribution hubs onwards.

Nixon said prosecutors "were able to piece together extensive amounts of evidence to demonstrate the men's guilt and hold those responsible for this operation accountable."

Seven men were sentenced in the most recent round of hearings — four on the Monday before the CPS post and three on the day of it — bringing the total number of gang members convicted of conspiring to supply cocaine to 22.

Nixon credited the result to working "closely with West Yorkshire Police, several other forces and an experienced team of barristers."