Dutchman Olpeth Ververgaert, 50, was arrested when police stopped a lorry carrying Dutch frikandel sausages at Woolley Edge service station on the M1 at Wakefield and discovered a massive drug stash intended for buyers from Leeds. He admitted conspiracy to import cannabis but denied conspiracy to import heroin and conspiracy to supply amphetamines. A Leeds Crown Court jury convicted Ververgaert of both the denied charges after a trial. The court heard Ververgaert successfully imported 1,168 kilos of cannabis worth £10m; 43 kilos of heroin worth £2.1m and 38 kilos of amphetamines with a street value of £1.1m. William Harbage QC, for Ververgaert, said: "We do say he is not the Mr Big of the operation, Mr Big doesn't get involved shifting pallets." Jailing Ververgaert for 20 years, Judge Paul Hoffman told him it was a "very sophisticated" smuggling operation, adding: "There may be somebody higher up the chain than you, there often is. But if you were not Mr Big, you were Mr Big Enough." Judge Hoffman also made a Serious Crime Prevention Order banning Ververgaert from the UK for five years after he is released from prison.
Ververgaert had told the court he was trying to set up a legitimate business, ACR, to export the popular Dutch frikandel sausages to the UK, but hit financial problems. He said he was introduced to an Englishman who wanted him to use his company as a front to smuggle cannabis. The sausages and drugs would be delivered to a depot in Slough and buyers would arrange to meet Ververgaert in a refrigerated truck. He would then drive the pallets out in the truck. Police found £1m worth of amphetamines hidden inside the consignment of sausages after it was stopped at Woolley Edge service station on the M1 at Wakefield last February. The previous day, Dutch police recovered heroin and cannabis worth more than £4m hidden in similar boxes at a cold store in Rotterdam. Between October 2007 and the discovery of the drugs last February, 51 pallets had already been exported to the UK. Ververgaert told the court he had started off packaging the cannabis in the consignments of sausages in Holland, but as the illegal trade grew he gave that job to another man while he dealt with buyers in the UK. ACR rented premises in Rotterdam where the sausages were repackaged with the drugs. The pallets were then shipped to cold storage in Slough. The operation was exposed when a fork lift truck driver in Rotterdam accidentally damaged one of the boxes. Of the six pallets in the load, five had shrink-wrapped boxes containing cannabis and the other load contained heroin.
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