Liverpool man jailed for 19 years over £20m international drug ring

A 23-year-old Liverpool man has been jailed for 19 years after pleading guilty to importing four counts of Class A and B drugs as part of a £20 million international operation, prosecutors said. Eddie Burton founded and ran the scheme with his former girlfriend, Sian Banks, 25, who was sentenced to five years in February after pleading guilty to seven charges, including importing Class A drugs and money laundering. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the pair’s plan to flood the UK with drugs was foiled by intercepts made in 2022, when two lorries carrying heroin, cocaine and ketamine were stopped at Dover Port.

The drugs from the two seizures totalled 307 kilograms with an estimated street value of about £20 million. The first vehicle, stopped on July 3, 2022, contained 90 kilograms of ketamine and 50 kilograms of cocaine packed into boxes and a Lidl shopping bag. Six weeks later, on August 12, 2022, a second lorry was intercepted. It contained 142 kilograms of cocaine and 25 kilograms of heroin hidden inside a modified fuel tank. The driver of that vehicle, a 64-year-old Latvian national named Maris Fridvalds, was later sentenced to 14 years in prison for his role as a courier. Forensics also linked Burton to both consignments and the altered fuel tank through his fingerprints and DNA.

Burton had been living between the Netherlands and Spain after relocating from the UK in early 2021. He was finally arrested in August 2023 by Spanish police at the Pacha nightclub in Ibiza, suspected of unrelated drug offenses, and, after extradition proceedings, was brought to the UK for trial 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 monthly from the UK to the Netherlands and Spain to visit Burton. After the couple’s phones were seized, officers recovered messages from July 5, 2022—two days after the first lorry was intercepted—indicating she had traveled to the Netherlands in late June to help prepare the first shipment. One message suggested Banks claimed her fingerprints were on the ketamine bags, while Burton reassured her that she had “never been nicked” so it did not matter. Banks was also found to have operated a scam selling doctored Covid-19 travel documents during the pandemic.

NCA Senior Investigating Officer John Turner said Burton, with Banks’ help, attempted to smuggle large quantities of harmful drugs into the UK, assuming 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,” Turner said. “The drugs, if they had reached our communities, would have had a destructive impact, fueling violence and exploiting vulnerable people throughout the supply chain.”

The Dover seizures and Burton’s subsequent arrest underscore a cross-border effort by law enforcement to disrupt a youth-led, international drug pipeline. The case also highlights how organized crime groups leverage European hubs to move contraband into the UK market and the way in which money flows support the operation, from the initial importation to the eventual laundering of proceeds.

In a related outcome, the man who drove the second lorry, Fridvalds, received a lengthy sentence in 2023, illustrating the broader penalties across the network for those involved in similar import attempts. The prosecution noted that even when the core leaders are abroad, the consequences extend to couriers, facilitators, and money launderers who enable these schemes.

The sentences reflect ongoing collaborations among UK and European authorities to dismantle organized crime networks. Burton’s case follows Banks’ prior conviction and highlights how digital communications and travel between multiple countries can be used to coordinate criminal activity. Investigators also described a parallel pattern of activity in which individuals travel between the Netherlands and Spain to support the operation, a reminder of how interconnected criminal networks can be and how quickly law enforcement can respond when intercepts occur.

Background analysis of the inquiry indicates Burton began his involvement in crime at a very young age, with reports noting an ascent from street-level dealing to international smuggling as he matured. While those accounts come from media reporting on his trajectory, the core legal outcomes are grounded in the court proceedings and forensic findings that tied him to the 2022 shipments and subsequent conspiracies. The case illustrates how violent, large-scale drug importations rely on a combination of overseas logistics, concealment strategies such as modified fuel tanks, and coordinated laundering activities to move profits back to those at the top of the operation.

As investigations continue to unravel the full extent of the network, authorities emphasized that the public safety implications of such schemes extend beyond street-level crime, threatening communities through violence, exploitation, and the distribution of highly addictive substances. The NCA and its international partners said the joint effort would continue to pursue leaders, financiers, and facilitators who attempt to operate on the wrong side of the law, wherever they are found.