Seven years for importing half-a-million quids worth of hash

Saturday 29 June 2019

The seizure of half a million pounds worth of cannabis resin by the Guernsey Border Agency has led to a 53-year-old man being sentenced to seven years in prison.

On 29 March this year, Darren Dixon tried to drive nearly 20kg of cannabis resin hidden in his Jaguar S-type off a Condor ferry and in to Guernsey, but he was stopped by officers at the border post.

While he originally said he had nothing in the car, and was visiting Guernsey for a holiday from his home in Spain, it did not take the officers long to find the first of a total of 205 individually wrapped packages of cannabis resin. 

The packages were carpet wrapped and hidden in the car's footwells, and other nooks and crannies around the vehicle. 

The drugs seized. 

In total, the GBA seized 19,781.4g of cannabis resin. In Guernsey, the current street price of the class B drug is between £20 and £30 a gram. So Dixon was carrying between £395,000 and £593,000 worth. 

Judge Russell Finch said this was the largest case of this kind to come before Guernsey's courts for some time now: "You would have seriously increased the stock of illegal drugs in the island had you not been caught.

"Disturbingly there are people that would have been ready to distribute this that are not before the courts, but these people can expect suitable punishment if they do ever appear." 

Dixon was born in the UK, but was living in Spain.

After Dixon was caught, he almost immediately indicated he would be pleading guilty, and co-operated with the authorities as much as he could. Because of this, the case was opened and closed within three months, a factor that played in his favour. 

Dixon did have two relevant previous convictions for being involved in drugs, but they were committed in the 1990s.

Speaking on his behalf, Advocate Paul Lockwood said his client was involved in a drug debt, and was working for people whom you "would not want to trifle with". 

While the Court accepted this, it also pointed out how Dixon was clearly involved with an organised enterprise, and stood to profit from the importation had he not been caught. 

Dixon was sentenced to a total of seven years in prison, which was dated back to his arrest and remand in custody on the 29 March.