'Transporters' were followed

Jul 29 2010 By Carl Gavaghan, Surrey Herald

SURREY Police have hailed the seizure of drugs in Chertsey with a street value of £2million as a major blow in the war on drugs.

Paul Shaw, 36, of Swinton, south Yorkshire and Gary Kurlej, 39, of Bournemouth were each jailed for seven years on Friday for supplying amphetamines.

They were arrested with 132 packages of the drug - which were between 47 and 60 per cent pure and carried a street value of between £250,000 and £2m - in April, at a lock-up in Chertsey as they attempted to transfer the boxes between two cars.

Detective Inspector Martin Goodwin said: "This was an excellent result for police and shows once again that criminals cannot avoid detection simply by travelling into different force areas to commit offences.

"These men had no regard for where these substances would ultimately end up and the damage they do to the wider community."

The pair were caught during Operation Shield, a cross-border operation designed to catch criminals coming into Surrey.

It is understood that Shaw had travelled down from south Yorkshire before meeting Kurlej. They had then been tailed in separate vehicles from a lay-by on the A320, near junction 11 of the M25, to Lyne Mushroom Farm in Chertsey.

Insp Goodwin added: "Here we have been able to intercept the organised network of distribution before the drugs make it to the dealers."

He said the police had no evidence to suggest the lock-up had not been used for drug deals before.

At Guildford Crown Court, both men claimed they had been hired and admitted they knew they were transporting drugs, but they denied being involved at any other stage.

Georgie Prasad, defending Shaw, argued that her client was a recovering heroin addict who lived on roughly £60 benefits a week.

"The offer of £100 cash was something he felt he could not refuse," she said.

In defence of Kurlej, Samuel McGee, played down his role in the supply chain and called for a lenient sentence on the basis that his client pleaded guilty from an early stage.