43-year-old Jean-Pierre Labelle from Ryde has been charged with importing Class A drugs following the discovery of £10million worth of cocaine in Newhaven last year.
As previously reported by Island Echo, 100kg of cocaine – worth an estimated £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 of this year at a property on Ashey Valley Apartments, Ashey Road in Ryde, but was released. The 43-year-old was re-arrested on the Island on Saturday by officers from the National Crime Agency as part of the major investigation.
Jean-Pierre was charged on Sunday and appeared before the Isle of Wight Magistrates Court yesterday, where he was remanded in custody to appear before Lewes Crown Court on 27th July.
50-year-old James Satterley from Maidenhead has already been charged with importing Class A drugs and is awaiting trial.
It will be interesting to see what sentence he is given. Whatever it is, it won’t be long enough.
Ooops a daisy!
Great news. Lock him up if he is guilty for 25 years
No leniency. These criminal , greedy and selfish people need to be sent a very clear message.
Confiscate all his assets and when released impose movement restrictions indefinitely.
Had he not been caught who knows what would have happened to the victims and to what use the money would have been put. More criminal activity.
Organised criminals do not respond to anything other than very long custodial sentences with no early release. The amounts of profit to be made are too much of an incentive to be deterred by any other punishment.
Hope the inland Revenue give his tax returns a good going over too.
This low life ruin lives and they don’t care one bit, unfortunately they only do half the sentence..
street value is actually nearer £5.5million (not £10million)