Man who used motorhome to smuggle drugs jailed

A man who helped smuggle drugs worth up to £720,000 into the UK by hiding them inside a motorhome has been jailed.

Christopher Sale, 47, and associate Russell King brought two holdalls full of cannabis resin stashed in the compartments of the motorhome from mainland Europe in 2024.

King, who also smuggled hundreds of kilograms of ketamine using the same ferry route from Rotterdam to Hull, was jailed last year for 22 years.

At Sheffield Crown Court on Monday, Sale, of West Avenue, South Elmsall, was sentenced to four years and nine months for conspiring to import a controlled drug.

Sale was sentenced to two years and 11 months for fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a controlled Class B drug, and 20 months for supplying a controlled Class B drug, with those terms running concurrently.

King, from Royston in Barnsley, was arrested by officers from the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit (YHROCU) in August 2024.

Investigations established that he had also been instrumental in the importation of almost 1,400lb (632kg) of ketamine into the UK during July 2023, where he worked from mainland Europe to oversee the movement of the drugs.

Members of a wider organised crime group, which included Sale, were later identified and charged.

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