A man who pretended to be disabled in a plot to smuggle almost £900,000 worth of cocaine in the UK hidden inside an electric wheelchair has been jailed for more than six years.
Casimiro De Lemos Francisco, 56, rode the wheelchair through Manchester Airport on 30 March after landing in the UK on a flight from Bridgetown in Barbados.
De Lemos Francisco, who is able-bodied and was pretending to be disabled, told Border Force agent he was on a two-day visit to Britain to see a friend.
He had been hoping to avoid scrutiny of his wheelchair during passenger through airport security.
But a scan of his wheelchair revealed the seat and backrest had been stuffed with bricks of cocaine, weighing 12 kilos, a court heard.
The National Crime Agency, which was called in to investigate, said drugs worth around £880,000 were seized in total.
When he was first questioned about the suspicion scan of his chair and asked to say what was inside, De Lemos Francisco replied: “I don’t know, you will need to ask my friend.”
The NCA added that a tracking device was also found in the chair’s battery compartment, believed to be used by the organised crime group behind the drug smuggling operation to track the progress of their shipment.
De Lemos Francisco, who hails from Guimaraes in the north of Portugal, pleaded guilty to smuggling class A drugs.
At Manchester crown court on Thursday, he was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison.
The case comes in the same week that 71-year-old Ronald Lord, from Montreal in Canada, was jailed for six years for a strikingly similar drugs smuggling plot.
He was discovered at Gatwick airport with £600,000 of cocaine hidden in his mobility scooter.
NCA senior investigating officer Charles Lee, said of De Lemos Francisco: “Organised crime groups will try anything possible to smuggle drugs, but using a wheelchair and a man pretending to be disabled is particularly abhorrent.
“The NCA works with partners at home and abroad to combat the threat of Class A drugs and protect the UK public.”
Former Premier League referee David Coote denies child abuse video allegation
Addict who brutally beat 94-year-old man during burglary is jailed for murder
Is this Charlie Kirk's killer? Video shows figure lurking on rooftop
‘I hear the screams, I see the blood’ – Southport survivor tells of nightmares
