Three jailed for £2m cocaine smuggling plot

Ruford Davis (left), David Farquharson (centre), and Junaed Dar (right) were all jailed after being found guilty by a jury

Three men have been jailed after being found guilty of trying to smuggle drugs into the UK from Colombia.

Junaed Dar, 47, of Randolph Road, Slough, was an airport security manager at Heathrow Airport, who helped two drug mules import what he thought was cocaine into the country.

Ruford Davis, 55, of Pitfield Road, Dudley, and David Farquharson, 53, of Waterside Avenue, Wednesbury, were part of the same organised crime group.

Dar was jailed for 16 and-a-half years while Davis and Farquharson were each jailed for 14 and-a-half years, after they were all found guilty of attempting to smuggle Class A drugs at Kingston Crown Court.

The court heard that Dar arrived at the airport three hours before his shift started on 14 December 2019.

He collected an airport vehicle, dressed in his security uniform and drove to Terminal 2B to meet the drug mules, Michael Williams and Jessica Waldron, who were both from Dudley.

They were due to land on a flight from Bogota, Colombia, carrying 22kg of cocaine with a street value of about £2m.

Davis and Farquharson were involved in the organisation of the drug couriers' outward and return journeys.

When they landed, the duo both sent Waldron identical screenshots from encrypted mobile devices of instructions for meeting Dar.

Neither the three men or the drug mules knew that the Columbian police had searched their checked-in bags in Bogota Airport, removed the cocaine and replaced them with blocks of wood.

Once at Heathrow, Dar took them to the toilets, took the bags and got in his vehicle, before being arrested by National Crime Agency officers.

Williams and Waldron were arrested as they tried to leave the airport, and were each jailed for six years and eight months in 2022 after admitting to drug importation.