Four accused of smuggling cannabis to UK in the post
Four men have gone on trial charged with smuggling more than 300kg of cannabis from the US into the UK using the postal service.
Mohammed Hussain, 28, Abu Hussain 28, Sean Montgomery, 24 and Steven Munroe 44, all from Cardiff, are charged with conspiracy to import and supply controlled drugs.
An operation by police started after a postal worker reported suspicious activity and more than 20 uncollected parcels were seized at a sorting office.
The jury at Newport Crown court heard this was “drug dealing on an industrial scale”.
Prosecutor Roger Griffiths said “80 addresses across south Wales” were listed in the police operation.
Mr Griffiths said: “Some of the addresses didn’t exist but you can see the scale of the operation by the number of addresses.”
He said 329kg of cannabis worth millions was imported.
Mr Griffiths told the jury how two defendants, Mohammed Hussain and Abu Hussain, were both involved in the “distribution and collection of cannabis and large sums of money”.
He said the pair was working for the leader of an organised crime gang.
The jury heard both men would collect parcels from the addresses and take them to a “stash house” in Cardiff.
Mr Griffiths said: “While the pair have pleaded guilty to the domestic distribution, we say they must have been involved in the importation of cannabis.”
Text messages asking about delivery were read to the court, which the prosecution say shows they were “participants in the importation of drugs.”
Sean Montgomery’s involvement was on 26 October 2024 he went to the Royal Mail sorting office in Barry to collect three parcels.
They weren’t released because the address didn’t exist, the sorting office reported them and they were seized by the police.
By this stage there were 22 parcels at the sorting office to the address.
Parcels with at least 85kg were intercepted by UK Border Force.
The court heard Steven Munroe’s involvement was he allowed 23kg to be delivered to his house in Splott.
The prosecution claim he “knew about the bigger operation and parcels coming in from America”.
The jury was told the police operation started in November 2022 after a postal worker was suspected and arrested for intercepting parcels on his rounds.
When a new worker started on that round, he was “approached by an Asian man who asked if there was a parcel for 44 Kidwelly Grove”, Mr Griffiths said.
“When he found out about his former colleague and when the man approached him a second time asking for a parcel, he made a note of the car number plate and model and reported it to the police.
“The car was registered to Mohammed Hussain.”
Police arrested Mr Hussain and inside the car found empty cannabis packets and other drug paraphernalia.
His phone was also seized, which Mr Griffiths said “revealed his extensive involvement in the distribution of cannabis”.
The “stash house” on Ninian Road was raided and 58 parcel wrappings were discovered and 1kg of cannabis.
The men were all arrested in December 2024.
Mr Munroe told officers he had accepted £50 to take delivery of a parcel but he didn’t know about the parcels intercepted by UK Border Force.
The court heard Mr Montgomery told the police he had only gone to the sorting office after a friend called him and asked because he was in Barry.
The other two men exercised their right to silence.
Mohammed Hussain and Abdu Husain have pleaded guilty to supply a controlled class B drug but deny conspiracy to import class B drugs.
Sean Montgomery and Steven Munroe deny both charges.
The prosecution says 329kg of cannabis worth millions was imported from America. Read More
