Liverpool drug kingpin jailed for £20m international operation

A British drug trafficker has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for leading a £20 million international operation that sought to flood the United Kingdom with heroin, cocaine and ketamine. Eddie Burton, 23, of Liverpool, pleaded guilty to four counts of importing Class A and B drugs at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday, after orchestrating the scheme from overseas addresses in mainland Europe with his ex-girlfriend, Sian Banks.

Two lorries were intercepted by Border Force at Dover Port in July and August 2022 as the drug run unfolded. The first lorry contained 90 kilograms of ketamine and 50 kilograms of cocaine packed into boxes and a Lidl shopping bag. The second lorry, intercepted on August 12, 2022, carried 142 kilograms of cocaine and 25 kilograms of heroin hidden in a modified fuel tank. Investigators said the combined weight of the drugs was 307 kilograms, with a street value of about £20 million. The driver of the second lorry, Maris Fridvalds, a 64-year-old Latvian national, was later jailed for 14 years for his role as a courier.

Forensics matched Burton's fingerprints and DNA to both drug consignments and the modified fuel tank, tying him to the operation that spanned the Netherlands and Spain, where he had been living since early 2021. He was arrested in August 2023 by Spanish police at Pacha nightclub in Ibiza while using an alias to avoid detection. After being extradited to Germany and charged with drug offences, he was returned to the United Kingdom in March 2024 by officers from the National Crime Agency's Joint International Crime Centre.

Banks was arrested in December 2023. Investigators found that between June 2022 and October 2023 she travelled to the Netherlands and Spain on a monthly basis to visit Burton. She pleaded guilty in February to seven charges, including importing Class A drugs and money laundering, and was sentenced to five years in prison. The evidence also showed that on two occasions in August 2022 she smuggled cocaine and ketamine into the UK in her luggage after visiting Burton in Amsterdam. A message recovered from Banks' phone showed that after the first lorry was intercepted in July 2022 she flew to the Netherlands in late June and prepared the first shipment of drugs for transport. In the exchange she told Burton that her fingerprints were on the bags of ketamine, to which Burton replied: "You've never been nicked or had ye prints took anyway so doesn't matter."

NCA Senior Investigating Officer John Turner said: "Burton, with Banks' help, attempted to smuggle huge quantities of harmful drugs into the UK, believing he could operate with impunity overseas. Banks held a crucial role in the criminal enterprise, laundering the illicit profits and acting as the UK-based facilitator for the multi-million pound drug importations. The drugs, had they reached their final destination, would have had a destructive impact on our communities, fuelling violence and exploiting vulnerable people throughout the supply chain." He added that the case demonstrates the cross-border nature of modern drug networks and the importance of international co-operation to disrupt them.

The case highlights Burton's long-running involvement in the drug trade. Local reporting has described him as a teenager who began dealing on the streets, ultimately rising to coordinate international shipments while living between the Netherlands and Spain. Family and friends in Liverpool described him as a former tearaway whose associates say he became embedded in the drug economy at a young age. The investigation also pointed to the role of the 64-year-old Latvian driver and the concealment methods used, including the altered fuel tank that hid the cocaine and heroin.

The sentencing underscores the ongoing threat posed by international smuggling networks. Authorities say cross-border operations require sustained international cooperation to disrupt, prosecute and deter criminal enterprises that seek to move illicit substances into the UK and other markets. The NCA emphasized that the operation would have caused substantial harm had the drugs reached their intended destination, highlighting the broader public-safety stakes in trafficking prosecutions.