Four men jailed for £20m cocaine smuggling plot using frozen fish

Four men have been sentenced to prison following a Metropolitan Police investigation into a plot to smuggle approximately 600kg of cocaine into the United Kingdom. Dubbed the ‘Fish Conspiracy’, the group planned to hide the drugs, valued at over £20 million, inside shipments of frozen fish arriving from South America.

At Snaresbrook Crown Court, Samuel Tokeley and Nicholas Shilling each received 22-year sentences. Scott Richards was sentenced to 14.5 years, and Scott Unwin, who intended to use his legitimate fish business at Billingsgate Market to receive the shipments, was jailed for 13 years.

The conspiracy was uncovered through intelligence gathered from the dismantled EncroChat encrypted communications platform. Investigators recovered messages detailing logistics, payments, and contacts in Ecuador used for sourcing the cocaine. While the cocaine shipment was intercepted before entering the UK, the investigation also revealed a separate plot to import industrial quantities of ketamine.