Three men have admitted conspiring to smuggle €6.5 million worth of cocaine from the UK to Ireland last year.
52-year-old Joseph Gray, a lorry driver from Draperstown in Northern Ireland, was stopped at Holyhead in Wales on his way to Dublin on 9 October last year.
69kg of the drugs were found hidden in his truck amongst pallets of yoghurt and orange juice.
The cocaine was in one kilo blocks.
Gray collected the drugs the day before from two other men, 31-year-old Moynul Hoque, from Clapton, in London, and 35-year-old Usman Iqbal from Grays in Essex.
They met Gray at Thornbury near Bristol and handed over the drugs.
All three were linked through telecommunications and telematics evidence
The two Englishmen were arrested together two months later at the Channel Tunnel UK Customs Control in Coquelles in France, travelling in a Belgian registered BMW.
"These drugs would have put vast sums of money back into the hands of criminals who would have reinvested it into more offending," said senior National Crime Agency investigating officer Callum Gracey.
Yesterday, at Caernarfon Crown Court, all three admitted exporting drugs and are due to be sentenced on 4 March 2022.
