Ryde man Jean-Pierre Labelle has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for his part in a multi-million-pound drug smuggling operation, just 3 years after being imprisoned for people smuggling.
100kg of cocaine – worth an estimated £8-10million – was seized in a van at Newhaven, East Sussex in November 2019. Border Force officers recovered 97 packages each containing approximately a kilo of cocaine from the back of a van carrying frozen fish.
Labelle was originally arrested in March 2020 at a property on Ashey Road in Ryde, but was released. The then 43-year-old was re-arrested on the Island by the National Crime Agency (NCA) in June of that year, charged and put before the courts.
Now, almost 5 years later, 48-year-old Labelle has been sentenced to 17 years behind bars for importing the Class A drug. He previously pleaded guilty to the offence in October 2023.
He was sentenced at Hove Crown Court yesterday (Friday) alongside 46-year-old Tanvir Hussain, 56-year-old Michael Keating and 49-year-old Matthew Keating.
Martin Matthews, Senior Investigating Officer for the NCA, previously said:
“This was a significant seizure of cocaine which, had it not been stopped, would have ended up in the hands of gangs involved in street violence and exploitation.
“Working with our law enforcement colleagues we are determined to do all we can to disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks involved in transporting class A drugs into the UK.”
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It was in March 2022 that Labelle was sentenced to 8 years in prison for smuggling 10 migrants into the UK via East Cowes Marina in March 2020 – the same month he was originally arrested for the drug importation.
