Lorry passenger jailed for importing heroin through Dover

Aleksandar Kuzmanovic was travelling in a lorry from Belgium

A smuggler who was stopped in Dover with 5kg of heroin with a street value of at least £238,000 has been jailed, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

Austrian national Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, 27, was a passenger in a lorry travelling from Belgium on 27 September when the cab of the vehicle was searched by Border Force officers,

They found a bag with a number of packages of drugs inside.

He was jailed for five years at Canterbury Crown Court on Thursday.

At a hearing on 28 September he had pleaded guilty to attempting to import a class A drug, having admitted at the scene that the drugs were his.

He told the Border Force officers at Dover Western Docks he believed the drugs were cannabis, and he was transporting them to pay off debts, the NCA said.

Mark Howes, from the NCA, said: "This was a crude attempt to bring heroin into the UK with Kuzmanovic making very minimal attempts to hide his drug smuggling."

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