A gang member dubbed ‘The Captain’ used a fake solar module company to smuggle drugs from South America to Europe, a court was told.
Paul Fleming, 39, pleaded guilty at the High Court in Glasgow, Scotland, to offences including importing and supplying controlled drugs, possessing firearms and money laundering.
Fleming was a senior member of a major Scottish cartel that reportedly used a fake PV supplier called ‘Adastra Off Grid’ to import narcotics over a five-year period.
Five pallets full of panels were seized from a London-based transport company after arriving from Glasgow last year.
Prosecutor Scott McKenzie is quoted in Scottish media as telling the court that units were found to contain voids lined with lead that police believe were designed to conceal and transport drugs.
McKenzie said that Fleming and other gang members used low security “green lanes” at UK ports – reserved for “well-established companies” – to bring in hundreds of kilos of cocaine and cannabis from Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil.
Operation Escalade, a Police Scotland investigation into Fleming’s crime group, had linked him to Adastra after intercepting encrypted messages. McKenzie said that Adastra is suspected to be a shell company.
Fleming was arrested in Southern Spain last year during a joint operation between local and Scottish police. He was later extradited back to Scotland.
Over 40 people have been arrested as part of Operation Escalade since it was launched in 2014.
In a statement issued to Recharge, detective chief superintendent Vicky Watson, Police Scotland’s Head of Organised Crime, said that Fleming had believed he was “untouchable and fled Scotland to evade justice”.
“However, the hard work and perseverance of our officers, working in partnership with law enforcement agencies in this country and abroad, saw him tracked down, arrested and returned to face the consequences of his criminal activity.”
