A key member of a gang of international drug smugg

A key member of a gang of international drug smugglers
faces jail after being found guilty today (Monday) of importing
pnds stlng 1.

6 million of cannabis resin.

Judge Bruce Laughland QC adjourned sentencing John Chapman,
37, for 28 days so a full evaluation of his financial assets could
be made.

Six of the other eight defendants were sentenced last year
after being found guilty or admitting their involvement.

The other two were acquitted.

The gang sailed a pnds stlng 15,000 yacht from the south of
England to the Bay of Cadiz on the south coast of Spain in May,
1990.

Chapman flew to Spain and made several trips across the
border into nearby Morocco where he bought a total of just under
half-a-tonne of cannabis resin with a street value at that time
of pnds stlng 1,640,000.

‘Chapman was the man who did the transactions in Morocco
going back and forth from Spain,’ said prosecutor Mr Michael Parroy,
QC.

The drug parcels were transferred to the yacht and sailed
back to England.

But police and Customs officers had been keeping a close
watch on the gang for at least five months and pounced when the
smugglers unloaded the cannabis resin in an estuary off Salcombe,
Devon, in the early hours of July 5, 1990.

One address was the particular focus of the undercover
customs officers observation.

A flat in Newbury House, Northampton
Road, Islington was home to three of the gang, the court heard.

Nine gang members were arrested in a co-ordinated swoop.

Chapman, of Denehurst Gardens, Woodford, Essex, was found
guilty of importing 494 kilograms of cannabis resin between January
and July, 1990.

He denied the charge.

One other gang member is still at large.

ends