Man arrived by ferry with £49k cocaine in hire car

A man caught trying to smuggle more than £49,000 of cocaine into the Isle of Man in a hire car has been jailed.

Nigel Mullan, 48, was stopped at the Sea Terminal after arriving by ferry with the car in October last year.

He told customs officials he worked for a Glasgow-based removal firm and was visiting the island to provide a quote, however the company had been dissolved two years earlier, Douglas Courthouse was told.

A search of the vehicle found the drugs stashed behind a panel in the front passenger door.

Mullan was jailed for seven years and four months.

The court heard Mullan arrived on the ferry from Heysham at about 17:30 BST on 16 October, along with a female passenger.

He was stopped by customs officials as part of routine checks after disembarking the boat at the Sea Terminal in Douglas.

He told the officers he was visiting the island to carry out a quote for A-Team Removals.

They became suspicious after a search of UK Company House records showed that although he had been a director of the firm for 12 years, it had been dissolved in October 2023.

They also discovered the black Ford Kuga he was driving had been hired the previous day in Glasgow, for 48 hours.

The court heard the woman freely admitted to the port officials that she had been paid £250 to accompany him while he carried out the quote.

The package was initially identified as being hidden in the car door by a police detection dog before it was forensically recovered.

Prosecutors said the cocaine had a street value on the Isle of Man of £49,240.

Mullan initially denied any knowledge of the drugs when interviewed by police, but later pleaded guilty to a charge of importing the Class A substance.

In a letter to the court ahead of sentencing, Mullan said he did not know the drugs were in the car – a claim Deemster Graeme Cook said was "rubbish" given his guilty plea.

Jailing Mullan, the deemster said his role in the plot to import the drugs had fallen into the category of significant as he had hired the car and booked the travel and accommodation.

He had also taken the woman along with him on the trip in an attempt to "legitimise" his reason visiting the island, the deemster said.

His actions "must have been for financial gain", he added.

Mullan was also banned from returning to the island for five years following his release.

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