Six semi-professional footballers, involved in an industrial-scale cocaine empire valued at £260 million, have been sentenced to a total of 104 years in prison.
The network unraveled when police arrested Luke Skeete, 26, who was found driving a van containing eight kilos of Class A drugs. This arrest led to the seizure of 123kg of cocaine and 224kg of ketamine from storage units in Acton and Chiswick, West London.
Detectives believe that in just six months, Skeete and his associates distributed over 2.7 tonnes of high-grade cocaine across the UK, employing a sophisticated business model.
Surveillance footage from October 2022 shows Skeete in a white vehicle, handing over a holdall of drugs. His arrest in September last year, and the subsequent examination of his mobile phone, linked him to fellow footballers Shaquille Hippolyte-Patrick, 29, Jamarl Joseph, 28, Adam Pepara, 35, Andrew Harewood, 34, and Melchi Emanuel-Williamson, 29, through a secure messaging app.
Extensive CCTV footage captured the group’s activities, revealing frequent trips to warehouses with drugs hidden in holdalls and boxes.
At Isleworth Crown Court, Skeete, of West Drayton, received 13 years and one month, and Chesham United’s Hippolyte-Patrick, from North Kensington, was sentenced to 18 years and nine months. Joseph, of Wembley, playing for Slovakian side FK Senica, was given 17 years and six months. Pepara, of Solihull, received 24 years; Harewood, of Harrow Borough FC, 16 years and one month; and Emanuel-Williamson, of Margate FC, 14 years.
PC Perry from the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime North, said, “The operation we’ve dismantled here is not some minor undertaking, involving a group of chancers – this is a highly organised criminal group who were supplying drugs on an industrial scale throughout the UK. The sentences received reflect the gravity of what they had been doing.
“This is a criminal group who had otherwise promising careers – semi-pro footballers with other jobs and courses they were undertaking – but they were motivated by making money from drugs that fuel misery and violence on our streets.
“Anyone else wondering if they can make cash from this type of activity should take a look at these sentences and think again, because it’s only a matter of time before you are caught.”
[Image created via MidJourney]