Man jailed for 10 years after UK’s largest residential seizure of MDMA and crystal meth, police say
Border Force officers say they found stash hidden in children’s toys, which was later linked to separate haul found by council workers
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A man has been sentenced to 10 years in jail after police made what is thought to be the largest seizure of MDMA and crystal meth from a residential home in the UK.
The Metropolitan Police said Patrick Scotland, from White City, west London, pleaded guilty to several drug charges at Isleworth Crown Court, where he was sentenced on Friday.
A haul of class A and B drugs with a £2.3m estimated street value was discovered when Border Force officers, who were carrying out routine checks on postal items entering the UK, found MDMA hidden in children’s toys.
Separately, police were alerted by council workers who discovered a large quantity of suspected class A drugs at Scotland's home while carrying out gas safety checks in February.
Sealed bags and food storage tubs containing various types of pills and powders - including several kilogrammes of crystal meth, MDMA and cocaine, 185,000 ecstasy pills, eight kilos of cannabis resin and more than 10,000 LSD tabs, along with drug paraphernalia - were found at the property.
Officers were able to link the two hauls to the 28-year-old.
Scotland pleaded guilty to three counts of possession with intent to supply a class A drug and two charges of possession with intent to supply a class B drug, a police spokesperson said.
“This is a fantastic example of a collaborative effort to crack down on drug-related criminality, which ultimately enabled us to remove a vast amount of class A and B drugs from the streets of London,” Detective Sergeant Kieran Curry, of the central west gangs unit, said.
“The evidence we built against Scotland was overwhelmingly strong and ultimately led to a guilty plea.
“It is a sterling example of the work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure such offenders are brought to justice.”
Officers from the Met's central west command unit, who arrested Scotland, also recovered drugs that were hidden under a sofa, along with a laptop.
Police said Scotland also admitted to being concerned in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a class A drug and to "possession of a weapon for the discharge of a noxious liquid/gas/electrical incapacitation device".
Additional reporting by Press Association