A qualified pilot who used his light aircraft in a bid to smuggle cocaine into the UK has been jailed for nine years following a National Crime Agency investigation.

Pilot Anastasios Balian, 52, and accomplice Errol McCardo Weir, 49, admitted trying to bring 30kg of the Class A drug into the country after being stopped by Border Force officers on 20 March this year, at North Weald airfield in Epping, Essex, after landing from Belgium via Calais.

Officers searched the small plane and discovered a concealment had been built into the rear seats. Inside it were 30 1kg blocks of cocaine with a street value of about £2.4m.

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