Hundreds of narcotics were brought into Helsingborg’s port

Was duped straight into a trap • Port workers acted as insiders

The local gang was charged on suspicion of trying to smuggle cocaine worth SEK 175 million into Helsingborg’s port.

Among them an employee who worked in the port for 30 years.

Now he is being sentenced together with two other men for the extensive drug smuggling.

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In October 2022, the plans were ready.

The cargo with the narcotics had rolled into Helsingborg’s port from South America and was ready to be received. A 49-year-old man is suspected of having organized and ensured that the drugs entered Sweden.

Via the encrypted communication service Sky ECC, he and several others are suspected of having planned the smuggling. According to the investigation, he must have had a man to help him who himself worked in Helsingborg’s port for 30 years and who came to function as an insider.

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Was tricked into a trap

But what none of the people involved knew was that the load of just over 100 kilos of narcotics had made a stop in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. There, the Customs staff had seized the drugs and exchanged the cargo for pretend drugs before it traveled on to the port of Helsingborg.

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A trap had been sprung.

Secret wiretapping and GPS were attached to the cargo and by the time it reached its final destination, customs and police had time to spy. When the cargo had reached Swedish waters, the container was broken into on 25 October.

Two men allegedly tried to access the cocaine they thought was in the containers.

A surveillance video captured the two men moving between the containers in the port. When they then left the area, they took filled bags with them and exited through a hole in a fence that an aide is suspected to have cut for them.

Just three weeks before the burglary in Helsingborg’s port, 93 kilos of cocaine had been found hidden in a container with bananas in Helsingborg’s port.

Everyone is judged

On Tuesday, the verdict was announced at the Helsingborg district court.

The case has to do with the sequence of events in the fall of 2022 and plans for smuggling in 2020 that were planned via the encrypted communication service SKY ECC.

The dock worker is sentenced to two years in prison for, among other things, preparation for extremely serious drug smuggling. His friend, the 49-year-old man, is also sentenced to two years in prison for the same crime.

The district court now acquits the dock worker of involvement in the smuggling in 2022 where the drug party was replaced. According to the district court, it has not been established that the dock worker was involved before the cocaine had already been taken care of and replaced by the authorities. on the other hand, he is sentenced for crimes committed in 2020 when, together with the 49-year-old, he planned to smuggle cocaine from Ecuador.

The 43-year-old is sentenced to eight years in prison for, among other things, attempting and branding an extremely serious drug crime.

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Gateway for drugs

The dockworker had been released pending the verdict.

A total of 195 kilos of cocaine were seized in containers in the Netherlands and Sweden. Further seizures were made in the investigation.

Helsingborg’s port has been described by the Swedish Customs as a gateway for narcotics over the years, record seizures of narcotics have been made in the port.

– It is a big challenge for law enforcement authorities if there are employees who work – as in this case in the port – with connections to criminal actors, Sofia Wall, deputy head of the Swedish Customs Administration’s criminal department South, has previously said in a statement.

The dock worker and the 49-year-old are charged with branding and preparation for extremely serious drug smuggling. The 43-year-old is charged with attempted particularly serious drug offences.

All defendants have denied wrongdoing.