UK Border Force bust £1 million cocaine haul hidden in lorry load
Truck driver caught red-handed at Dover
Serhii Tukalo, 39, from Smila, Ukraine, was hauled in by the National Crime Agency after Border Force stopped his lorry at Dover’s freight terminal in May. An x-ray scan raised alarms over the load, which was supposedly air compressors and pressure washers from factories in Northern Italy.
£1 million cocaine stash uncovered
On closer inspection, officers found 20 kilo blocks of top-grade cocaine cleverly hidden inside boxes of equipment. If sold in the UK, the drugs would have been worth around £1 million.
Past crimes and suspicious evidence pile up
Tukalo was arrested for importing Class A drugs but denied any knowledge of the stash. The NCA found damning evidence, including two phones, a sim card holder with a UK phone number, and paperwork revealing Tukalo’s 2021 conviction in France for trying to smuggle Albanian migrants in his lorry cab.
Forensic experts uncovered images of Ukrainian and UK banknotes on Tukalo’s phone. The NCA said this correlates with a known drug and cash courier system where recipients prove identity with exact notes. The extra sim card Tukalo claimed to use for family calls was under a different name and only contacted two numbers without ever going online, casting doubt on his story.
Jury convicts Tukalo in just two hours
At Canterbury Crown Court, the jury took only two hours to find Tukalo guilty. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Derek Evans, NCA Operations Manager, said: “Tukalo tried to exploit his job as a haulier to smuggle a huge quantity of Class A drugs into the UK. Thanks to our robust border checks, his vehicle was caught. This sentence sends a clear message to anyone thinking of breaking the law at our borders.”
