Two UK drug dealers sentenced to a decade in jail for mailing it in

A judge in the UK sentenced two men to 10 years in jail this week for using the Royal Mail as the middle man in their drug business.

James Willoughby, 27, and Mac Cheremeh, 42, had been using the service to ship hundreds of packages containing an impressive range of drugs — including heroine, crack cocaine, marijuana, ketamine, LSD, crystal meth, amphetamines and ecstasy, according to Yahoo News UK.

The drugs were destined for addresses in the U.S., UK and Australia until the Royal Mail caught a whiff of the plan after 54 packages arrived at the same sorting facility in a four-day period, all giving off the distinct scent of marijuana.

“This was a significant haul of drugs, which was discovered thanks to the diligence of Royal Mail staff,” said a spokesperson for the Essex Police. “We’d like to thank them for their support throughout our investigation.”

After the initial discovery, Royal Mail investigators subsequently intercepted around 1,800 other packages during a one-month period near the end of 2018 containing drugs with an estimated street value of just under US$700,000. Willoughby and Cheremeh soon admitted to three charges of engaging in a conspiracy to supply class A drugs and two charges of conspiracy to supply class B drugs.

Willoughby’s brother Charles received an eight-month sentence, suspended for two years, on one count of conspiracy to supply class B drugs.

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