A drug kingpin dubbed the "Escobar of Essex" was sentenced to 16 years in prison after botching a £20,000,000 cocaine deal and accidentally sending the drugs to the wrong country. Jonathan Parkhill, 55, was apprehended when investigators deciphered his encrypted texts, which revealed intimate ties to Colombian gangs. They disclosed that the narco baron, originally from Clapham, Essex, had been attempting to rescue a 30kg consignment meant for Germany that had been mistakenly delivered to South Africa. It was later confiscated in 2020. A botched scheme between Parkhill and his right-hand man Kevin Hanley, 44, to smuggle 500kg of cocaine into Belgium was also disclosed, in a deal worth more than £19,000,000.
Jonathan Parkhill
Kevin Hanley his associate
According to the Sun, the money from the sale was going to be split between Parkhill and a number of 'Colombian Groups,' but it was thwarted when the deal went bad and Hanley was beaten up. Parkhill was apprehended in 2021 when officials apprehended him at Heathrow Airport. He'd recently returned to the UK from Colombia, the home of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. Hanley was apprehended near his house in Uxbridge, West London, where authorities discovered a sawn-off shotgun. During their appearance at Isleworth Crown Court, the pair pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine and admitted to a "string of other offenses." Parkhill received a 16-year prison sentence. Hanley was sentenced to 11 and a half years in jail. 'Parkhill is one of the greatest drug traffickers caught in the UK for a long time,' a source told the Sun after their sentencing. They were among 746 people arrested as part of the National Crime Agency's Operation Venetic. The NCA was established in 2020 with the goal of "bringing down the encrypted communication platform EncroChat," which "at the time was one of the largest providers of encrypted communication." EncroChat utilizes modified Android phones and charged £1,500 for six months of use. Handsets could only communicate with other phones that were identical to them. They just possessed the unique chat app and a currency converter to assist them calculate profit on deals. There were believed to be 10,000 users in the UK, with a total of 60,000 worldwide.
By Covenantblog
