A 56-year-old Portuguese man who posed as disabled to transport nearly £1 million worth of cocaine into the United Kingdom has been sentenced to almost seven years in prison after Border Force officers found the drugs concealed in his mobility scooter.
Border Force stopped Casimiro De Lemos Francisco while he was riding an electric wheelchair through Manchester Airport on March 30 after arriving on a flight from Bridgetown, Barbados. Officers discovered 11 packages of cocaine hidden in the backrest of the scooter; the packages weighed a combined total of up to 12 kilograms and had an estimated street value of about £880,000.
De Lemos Francisco, who is from Guimaraes in northern Portugal, appeared at Manchester Crown Court last week where he admitted attempting to smuggle a class A drug into the UK and was jailed for almost seven years. At the airport he told officials he was in the country for two days to visit a friend and, when the wheelchair was being scanned, said he did not know what was concealed inside and that officers would need to ask his friend.
The National Crime Agency said investigators also found a tracking device in the wheelchair's battery compartment that the organised crime group had reportedly used to follow the scooter's progress. The agency said using a wheelchair and an apparently able-bodied person pretending to be disabled as part of a smuggling operation was "particularly abhorrent."
This is the second recent case in which a mobility scooter has been used to attempt to smuggle large quantities of cocaine into the UK. Earlier this year Ronald Lord, 71, was jailed for six years after Border Force officers at Gatwick Airport discovered about 8 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of about £600,000 concealed in a wheelchair. Authorities said Lord, a Canadian national from Montreal, was stopped on Feb. 7.
National Crime Agency Senior Investigating Officer Charles Lee said the NCA works with partners at home and abroad to combat the threat of class A drugs and protect the public. He emphasised that organised crime groups will try "anything possible" to move illicit drugs across borders and that intelligence-led screening and interagency cooperation remain central to disrupting such plots.
Border Force and the NCA did not disclose further details about the identity of other suspects or any ongoing enquiries. The convictions underscore continued efforts by UK border and law enforcement agencies to detect concealed consignments and target smuggling methods that exploit medical equipment and vulnerable-person provisions.