73-Year-Old Jailed For Drug Smuggling And Attempting To Fake Own Death

A 73-year-old drug smuggler who attempted to fake his own death

to avoid prison has been jailed for eight years.

Spanish national Jose Louis Calvo Serra, from Madrid, was first arrested at Bristol Airport on 9 March 2012 as he tried to leave the UK.

He had arrived at the same airport a few days earlier having travelled from Spain, via Casablanca, Gambia, Senegal and Brussels.

A 76-year-old man Calvo Serra had been travelling with had been found to be carrying almost four kilos of cocaine.

Computer and forensic evidence was identified that linked Calvo Serra to the importation, but while on bail NCA investigators received a death certificate.

Checks with the Spanish authorities showed that no formal record of his death existed and the certificate was a forgery. A European Arrest Warrant was issued and he was extradited after being located in Madrid in April 2015.

Calvo Serra was found guilty of conspiring to import cocaine at Bristol Crown Court. He was jailed for eight years, plus an extra four months for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Dawn Cartwright, Operations Manager for the NCA's Border Investigation Team, said: "Calvo Serra thought he could escape justice by playing dead but our investigators were not so easily fooled and checks revealed the death certificate was a fake.

"We then worked with our Spanish colleagues to track him down and return him to the UK to face justice.

"It demonstrates our determination to disrupt and bring to book drug traffickers and the organised criminal networks involved in this illegal trade."

(MH/LM)