Truckers caught with £500,000 drugs haul at Cairnryan port

Two lorry drivers who claimed they were transporting a load of kitchen appliances were caught at a Scottish ferry port with a haul of drugs worth more than £500,000 on the streets.

Domas Paskauskas, 38, of Peterborough, and Donatas Sukys, 41, from Spalding, were stopped by border officers at Cairnryan bound for Northern Ireland in October 2022.

The lorry they were travelling in was pulled over and officials noticed a strong smell of aftershave in the cab and a search was carried out.

The pair admitted being concerned in the supply of both cannabis and cocaine at the High Court in Edinburgh and their sentence was deferred.

The court heard that nothing untoward was found in their trailer, but 16 packages were recovered from the cab with the smell of herbal cannabis coming from many of them.

Officers suspected some of the packages might contain Class A drugs and more than three kilogrammes of high purity cocaine was found after a Paul Smith designer bag in the cab was checked.

Judge Paul Brown was told that the cocaine was 78% pure and had the potential to be worth in excess of £300,000 in street deals.

More than 25kg of the Class B drug cannabis was also recovered which had a potential maximum street value of more than £250,000.

Paskauskas, of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, and Donatas Sukys, from Spalding in Lincolnshire, admitted being concerned in the supply of both cannabis and cocaine at the port on 2 October 2022.

Both men had Lithuanian interpreters present in court with them to help them follow the legal proceedings.

The court heard that Paskauskas, a lorry driver and sole director of a company, was approached by “a third party” who asked him to transport a consignment of goods to Northern Ireland.

He claimed he was told that cannabis was involved, but not cocaine.

Paskauskas was disqualified from driving at the time and approached Sukys to drive the load and told him the consignment contained cannabis.

Defence counsel Frances Connor, for Paskauskas, said neither of the accused had served a prison sentence previously.

The judge adjourned sentence for the preparation of background reports on the pair and they were remanded in custody.