Jamaican chokes on cocaine in patties 6-year sentence

(Daily Mail) A Jamaican father of three has been jailed for six years after he smuggled £160,000 worth of cocaine into the United Kingdom in patties.

Dane Hamilton, 33, was stopped and searched at Birmingham Airport after arriving on a flight from Jamaica on August 2 last year.

Officers discovered a box of Jamaican patties in his hand luggage.

There were only 10 in the box instead of 12, and when officers examined them further, they were found to contain small packets of cocaine instead of a meaty filling.

The drugs weighed a total of 1.5 kilos and would have been worth approximately £160,400 if cut and sold on the street.

A jury sitting at Birmingham Crown Court unanimously convicted Hamilton, a Jamaican national, of drug smuggling on Friday, following a two-day trial.

Sentencing him to six years in prison, Judge Michael Chambers said it was a “sophisticated” crime and others must have been involved.

He told Hamilton: “There is a clear inference that you were doing it for substantial gain given the risks you clearly took.”

Hamilton, from Wolverhampton, West Midlands, said he had been visiting his mother after paying £1,000 for a ticket and had no idea what was inside the patties.