Drug dealer found with £180k of cocaine stashed in secret trap door in his van

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A member of an organised crime gang has been jailed for 11 years after being found with £180,000 of high purity cocaine hidden behind a secret trap door in his van. Paul Marrow was part of plot aimed at flooding the streets of Tyneside with cocaine and amphetamine.

The gang used a van with a secret trap door and encrypted phones to ship the drugs to the North East from Liverpool, ChronicleLive reports. Last month, head honcho John Allock was locked up for 21 years and five others got sentences ranging from a year to 13 years.

Nowl Marrow, 62, of Rainford Road, Dentons Green, Merseyside, who admitted Conspiracy to Supply Class A drugs, has been jailed for 11 years for his role as a courier. Newcastle Crown Court heard that police stopped Marrow's van on the A1 in Durham September 15, 2017.

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With the assistance of a drugs dog, a hidden electronically operated compartment complete with a trap door was found inside his white van and contained a 1kg block of high purity cocaine worth around £180,000.

Emma Dowling, prosecuting, said: "He had three phones. One was being used as a sat nav, the other was a personal phone and the third phone was encrypted, which featured throughout the conspiracy in relation to some of the other defendants".

Ms Dowling said Marrow made 40 trips to the North East between January 9 2017 and June 1 2018, transporting "in excess of 20kg" of drugs. The court heard that Marrow hadn't been living a lavish lifestyle from money made from the conspiracy but had, instead, got involved to pay-off a £12,000 debt, for which he was being charged £500 a day in interest.

Allcock, who was living in Spain, was later arrested with the help of the National Crime Agency by officers determined to bring the