ESSEX: Police discover drugs worth £20 million

FIVE men have been arrested after cops seized drugs worth an estimated £20 million in Thurrock.

Officers from the Middle Market Drugs Partnership discovered a load of drugs from a lorry at an industrial unit in Askew Farm Lane had been split and loaded onto two lorries, a van and a car.

Police swooped at around 7pm on Tuesday March 17 and arrested five men for conspiracy to import controlled drugs.

Two men fled and police are trying to trace them.

Searches of the warehouse area found 12 pallets at various stages of being loaded onto the vehicles.

Within them are what police believe to be 3.5 tonnes of cannabis resin, 1.5 tonnes of amphetamine, 0.5 tonnes of skunk cannabis and several kilos of mixed 'cocktail' loads of unidentified class A and B drugs.

Searches were also conducted at eight houses in Essex – two in Grays - and London.

Nigel Eeles, from the Middle Market Drugs Partnership, said: "We believe that we have caused a major disruption to a sophisticated organised criminal enterprise.

"The seizure is significant in size and trafficking of the drugs into the UK could have caused considerable harm to individuals and created substantial profit for this criminal organisation."

The lorry's load was supposed to be frozen chicken but the pallets seized had no cover load of chicken on them.

The five men, aged 49, 54, 67, 69, 70, are currently in police custody at Charing Cross Police Station.