Junaed Dar, 47, arrived at Heathrow Airport three hours before his shift as airport security manager to meet two drug mules in 2019.
Wearing his security uniform, Dar, of Randolph Road, Slough, drove an airport vehicle to Terminal 2B to meet Michael Williams, 39, and Jessica Waldron, 38.(Image: NCA)
The couple had boarded a flight from Bogota, Colombia, with the blocks of the class A drug in their checked-in baggage.
They did not know that Colombian police, working with the NCA, had searched their bags in Bogota Airport and replaced the blocks of cocaine with blocks of wood.
Once the couple had collected their bags, Dar escorted them to the toilets where he took the bags.
He got in his vehicle and was about to drive away when he was arrested by NCA officers.
On Monday (August 4), Dar was jailed for 16-and-a-half years at Kingston Crown Court.
Williams and Waldron, of Buxton Road, Hollyhall, Dudley, West Midlands, were arrested by Border Force officers working with the NCA as they tried to leave the airport.
They were each jailed for six years and eight months in 2022 having admitted attempting to import Class A drugs.
Dar was jailed with two fellow members of the organised crime group.
Ruford Davis, 55, and David Farquharson, 53, helped coordinate the drug couriers’ journeys.
When the drug couriers landed, the duo both sent Waldron identical screenshots from encrypted mobile devices of instructions for meeting Dar.
Davis, of Pitfield Road, Dudley, West Midlands, and Farquharson, of Waterside Avenue, Wednesbury, West Midlands, were both sentenced to 14-and-a-half years.
The trio were convicted by a jury of attempting to smuggle Class A drugs.
Mark Abbott, NCA operations manager, said: “Dar committed a gross betrayal of trust by playing a crucial role in this conspiracy which started in South America and would have ended with violent street gangs in UK towns and cities.
“Organised crime groups need corrupt insiders like Dar to help move illegal commodities.
“As an airport security manager, he had the access and ability to move drugs so they might not be stopped.
“Heathrow Airport fully supported the operation along with Border Force and together we continue to combat the threat of Class A drugs being smuggled this way.”
