Oldbury man on trial for part in £8.5m drugs plot
A man from the Black Country has gone on trial in Kent in the wake of the county's biggest ever drug bust.
Marek Sieprawski, from Oldbury, is among five people charged with conspiracy to supply cannabis following two police swoops in which cannabis worth up to an estimated street value of £8.5 million was seized.
Sieprawski, 34, of Gladstone Drive, denies the charge and has gone on trial at Maidstone Crown Court along with 52-year-old Hugh Webb, of Standfield Gardens, Dagenham.
The court has heard that two seizures of drugs were made within four days of each other, with cannabis worth £200,000 wholesale found in vehicles in a lay-by in Paddock Wood during the first police swoop.
In the second swoop, on the A28 in Kent, a lorry was stopped and police found cannabis with a street value of up to £8.5m in containers.
Prosecutor Steven Perian told the court Siepreawski was arrested during the first seizure.
Mr Perian said that police moved when he and another man had arrived in separate vans and stopped in a lay-by in Paddock Wood. They discovered 200 kilos of cannabis.
He said Sieprawski had driven from the West Midlands to make the delivery and claimed he thought the packages contained cigarettes.
After his arrest, Sieprawski said that he had been outside a pub in Oldbury smoking when a man approached, asked if he wanted to get some cheap cigarettes and handed him a mobile phone where he claimed he spoke to a man known as 'Adam'.
Sieprawski claimed that he received a phone call from Adam on March 4 who told him to go to Paddock Wood station and follow somebody to pick up cigarettes.
Sieprawski said that after arriving in the lay-by he heard a crash and saw the other man throwing packages into his van.
They hit the floor with such force he did not think they were cigarettes. Police then arrived and he was arrested.
"He maintained he was there to collect cheap cigarettes and nothing else," said Mr Perian.
In the rear of Sieprawski's van were four packages sealed in clear plastic.
Each package contained about 15 kilos of cannabis resin.
A further three men, Martin Merritt, 39, of Grosvenor Road, Dagenham; Michael Malone, 46, of Rutland Road, Hove and Danny Malone, 43, of Collier Street, near Tonbridge have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cannabis and will be sentenced at the end of the case. The trial against Sieprawski and Webb continues.
