35-year-old jailed for smuggling 5 kilos of California weed into UK worth £48k
A drug trafficker who helped import shipments of cannabis into Lancashire from the United States has been jailed by a judge in Preston.
The city’s Crown Court heard that had it not been for Border Force officers intercepting parcels from California, James Smith would have been free to put an estimated £48,000 worth of the drug onto the streets of the county.
Smith was sent to prison for two years after Judge Ian Unsworth KC was told at least four packages were mailed more than 5,000 miles to two addresses he lived at in Oswaldtwistle and Blackburn.
The 35-year-old admitted four charges of conspiracy to import the Class B drug into the UK.
Judge Unsworth told him he must go to jail because his role in the operation had been a “significant” one and he had stood to make a large amount of money from the enterprise.
And he added that the cannabis, weighing almost five kilos in total, would have been in the streets of Lancashire had it not been for the “good work” of the Border Force in spotting the parcels before they could be delivered.
Barrister William Beardmore, prosecuting, told the court that officers had seized four separate packages from California heading for the county.
The first contained 600 grams of cannabis, the next 943 grams and the others weighed in at 1.068 kilos and 2.2 kilos.
The prosecution said there had also been an exchange of mobile phone messages between Smith and an associate saying police had called at his house twice on consecutive days, but he had not answered the door.
He told his friend that it may have been because an “old parcel” containing a large amount of cannabis had not arrived and he had called FedEx to enquire that had happened to it. He was worried the authorities had linked him to shipments of drugs coming into Lancashire.
The messages and photographs were then deleted on WhatsApp in case police could examine the phone.
Mr Beardmore said Smith had claimed he was not being paid to receive parcels and was only “trying to source cannabis for one of his associates.”
Barrister Syam Soni, representing Smith, argued that despite the gravity of the offences the judge could step back from imposing an immediate custodial sentence.
He said Smith had been in prison on remand for around six months – the equivalent of a 12-month jail sentence – and there was a chance of rehabilitation.
His client, he said, had a “lengthy and unhappy history of misuse of drugs” and some of the cannabis in the parcels had been intended for his own personal use “to feed his expensive and long-standing habit at the time.”
Mr Soni said Smith was suffering from a number of mental health issues including PTSD, depression and anxiety.
“In my submission, Your Honour, you can perhaps take a chance on this defendant.”
Smith, of Roe Greave Road, Oswaldtwistle, was told by Judge Unsworth that, despite his barrister’s submissions, only an immediate prison sentence could be passed in this case.
He said his role was clearly significant, there was an expectation of significant financial gain and he had done it on multiple occasions. He had also destroyed evidence by deleting WatsApp messages and photos.
“Through the good work of the Border Force all the cannabis was intercepted.”
He sentenced Smith to two years on each of the four charges, all to run concurrently.