It is the end of the road for a notorious Nigerian drug baron, Patrick Udensi after he was caught in the UK.
The Nigerian drug baron, Patrick Udensi
A jailed smuggler who imported drugs worth millions of pounds into the UK has been ordered to hand over £1.2m or have seven years added to his sentence.
A judge told Patrick Udensi, 36, from North London (pictured top), to pay the sum after National Crime Agency (NCA) officers discovered he had valuable assets in Nigeria.
Nigerian national Udensi is serving a 15-year prison sentence after smuggling parcels of cocaine and cannabis with street value of £1.8m to addresses in North London.
He laundered the proceeds of his crimes by buying car parts in the UK and shipping them to Nigeria where they were sold on the open market on his behalf.
If he fails to pay cash equal to the value of his Nigerian assets, which the NCA successfully argued in court were the benefit of a criminal lifestyle, he will have seven years and six months added to his sentence and will still owe the money when he comes out.
Udensi was convicted in 2015 following an NCA investigation. An associate, John Arinze Nwosu, 44, from Edgebaston, Birmingham (pictured bottom), absconded before trial and was sentenced to five years in prison in his absence.
The NCA are appealing for information on Nwosu’s whereabouts.
John Arinze Nwosu
Udensi’s smuggling ring was discovered when Border Force officers detected a package mailed from St Maarten in the Caribbean to a North London address.
NCA border investigators found telephone and email evidence that Udensi headed up a group involved in at least 77 different parcel importations of cocaine and cannabis using 14 different destination addresses across north London.
He used Skype, Yahoo Messenger, iMessage and WhatsApp to communicate with drug distributors in Africa, Asia and South America.
Ian Truby, senior investigating officer for the NCA’s Heathrow border investigation team, said: “NCA officers will not let criminals serve their time and then fund luxury lifestyles with cash they made by exploiting people.
“We have worked hard in this case and others to find out how an offender has stored their criminal wealth so the courts can take it back from them.
“If Udensi pays up then he’ll get out of prison at the time he expected to. If not, it’s seven more years and the same bill at the end. It’s his choice.”
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