'Ghost' drugs kingpin caught at City match

TRAFFICKER JAILED FOR 19 YEARS AFTER OFFICERS SWOOP

- PAUL BRITTON

A MAJOR drugs kingpin - described by police as 'a highly sophisticated and professional international trafficker' was finally arrested as he prepared to watch Manchester City play Liverpool at Anfield.

Robert Bennett, 50, was described by the National Crime Agency (NCA) as 'ghost-like. They said he left 'little trace' and 'managed to stay off the radar for a long time! But justice has now caught up with him and he's behind bars serving a 19-year prison sentence.

NCA officers swooped to arrest him on October 3, 2021, as he walked into Anfield to watch Liverpool play Manchester City in the Premier League.

The agency said Bennett, from Wigan, was involved in the smuggling, or discussions around possible smuggling, of more than a ton of cocaine into Liverpool.

Known by the handle 'Dior Six' on the encrypted communications platform EncroChat, he worked with offenders based abroad and in the UK to traffick cocaine, the NCA said.

A spokesman said: "He used corrupt insiders at the Port of Liverpool to break out drugs from shipping containers and used foreign contacts to help him orchestrate the smuggling of drugs by road from Europe. In April 2020, Bennett and another EncroChat user successfully brought 97kg of cocaine into the UK, driven from the Netherlands.