​£1 million worth of cocaine discovered in electric wheelchair at Manchester Airport

A 56-year-old man has been charged with drug smuggling after he was found to have stashed 12kg of cocaine inside his electric wheelchair at Manchester Airport.

Casimiro De Lemos Francisco, from Portugal, was travelling from Bridgetown in Barbados to Manchester Airport on Sunday, March 30, when Border Force officers made the discovery.

After scanning his wheelchair, they found almost £1 million worth of cocaine hidden inside the seat and backrest, with a total of 11 packages weighing some 12kg.

Photos of the discovery, released by the National Crime Agency (NCA), show a haul of brown brick-shaped packages wrapped in tape inside the lining of the wheelchair seat.

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De Lemos Francisco was charged with drug trafficking, and was remanded on Tuesday, April 1, at Salford Magistrates’ Court. He’ll next appear at Manchester Crown Court on May 6.

Speaking on the incident, NCA’s Senior Investigating Officer Charles Lee said: “The concealment shows the ingenuity crime groups employ to smuggle cocaine.”

“The NCA works with partners at home and abroad to combat the threat of Class A drugs and protect the UK public,” he said.

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The discovery follows a slew of unusual busts in recent years as drug bosses find new innovative ways to conceal shipments. Last year, a haul of cocaine weighing around 5.7 tonnes was discovered amongst a banana shipment in Southampton.

The bust was said to be the UK’s “largest ever” of Class A drugs, found at Southampton Port. The haul would have been large enough to supply “every man, woman and child in the UK” twice over, according to Metro, racking up an enormous total of 114 million lines.

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor, follow her on Twitter