Beans means lines

Two drug dealers who smuggled £250,000 worth of cocaine in tins of beans and coconut milk have been jailed for a total of 15 years.

Daniel Kelly, 43, and Steven Gilhooly, 43, mailed the cans from St Lucia to addresses in Charlton and Greenwich, southeast London.

The coconut tins contained 1.95kg of cocaine wrapped in condoms and there was another 792g of cocaine in the bean cans.

On 16 December 2018, both Kelly and Gilhooly had flown from London Gatwick to St Lucia with a can sealer, telling officials they were on holiday.

Later that month the two parcels were sent from a St Lucia post office by Kelly, who used a fake driving licence that had his image but false personal details.

On 23 January 2020, Kelly was arrested from prison where he was serving time for a different offence.

Gilhooly was taken into custody on March 9.

Henry, of no fixed address, was sentenced to six and a half years’ after he admitted imprisonment for fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a Class A drug.

Gilhooly, also of no fixed address, was sentenced to eight and a half years’ imprisonment for fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a Class A drug after he denied the offence but was convicted by the jury.

Detective Inspector Matthew Webb from the Metropolitan Police Specialist Crime teams said: ‘Both men travelled to St. Lucia with the sole purpose of importing Class A drugs back into the United Kingdom.

‘The miserable effect that drugs supply has on our communities is undeniable and inextricably linked to violence within our communities.

‘Both men were willing to take such risk with this offending – thinking they were beyond the reach of the law and hoping to monetise profits.’