By Chris Dyer

Three Brits shipped £3.5 million worth of crystal meth to Australia in cargo made out to be a consignment of glass Buddhas.

Yvonne Stewart, 51, Kevin Filkins, 52, and Robert Hamilton, 51, were part of a drug smuggling gang behind a shipment containing 24 kilograms of the Class A drug which was seized in Australia.

The package was discovered by authorities in New South Wales and it then emerged it came 10,000 miles away from Croydon, on June 25, 2021.

CCTV images picked up Stewart, who was working in the cargo sector and was responsible for the security inspection of the item.

When the shipment arrived in Australia, it was discovered the drugs had been hidden inside, meaning she had not properly checked the contents, police said.

The images also captured a man, now discovered to be Filkins, sending a shipment labelled "two glass Buddhas" to New South Wales.

Phone records showed Stewart, from Croydon, had been on the phone to Hamilton, who had then been in touch with Filkins, who was seen travelling from his home in Sevenoaks, to the cargo centre the same morning that package was sent.

Investigators working for the NCA and the Met Police found that Filkins, Stewart and Hamilton worked together to send two other shipments to Australia on June 2 and 23 that year.

The three shipments were listed as sent by three people who the National Crime Agency found had their passports stolen.

Two were paid for using a debit card in Filkins’ name and the third from a card registered to a person whose passport was stolen.

This card, along with one of the stolen passports, were found in a raid on Filkins' home in Sevenoaks.

Filkins, Stewart and Hamilton were arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the exportation of Class A drugs last April.

At Croydon Crown Court on Friday, January 13, all three were found guilty.

Hamilton, from Orpington, was also convicted of possession with intent to supply a Class B drug and production of a Class B drug after a number of cannabis plants were found at his address on arrest.

All three defendants will be sentenced at the same court in March.

Richard Smith, from the Organised Crime Partnership, which is made up of the Met Police and the NCA, said: "This group exploited Stewart’s inside knowledge of the cargo industry to get their illegal shipment to Australia.

"They believed that once the shipment had been security checked, the drugs should remain undetected until they reached the recipient.

"This group exploited Stewart’s inside knowledge of the cargo industry to get their illegal shipment to Australia..."

"However, our work with the Australian Federal Police (APF) has seen this organised crime group’s criminal supply chain dismantled."

Det Sgt Kristie Cressy of the Australian Federal Police said officers discovered a crime gang was sending parcels of drugs from the UK.

She said: “The AFP obtained intelligence during an Operation Ironside investigation in Australia about an organised crime syndicate allegedly operating in the UK and sending parcels of illicit drugs offshore.

“We worked closely with our counterparts at the National Crime Agency to share intelligence that identified members of the syndicate operating in the UK and stopped their criminal ventures.”