Ibiza Nightclub Arrest Leads to Downfall of £20m Drugs Empire
A drug empire worth £20 million came crashing down when a drug dealer was apprehended in an Ibiza nightclub. Eddie Burton, aged 23, and his former partner, Sian Banks, collaborated in transporting drugs across Europe. The unraveling of their enterprise began when two lorries containing 307kg of heroin, cocaine, and ketamine, with a street value of £20m, were seized at the Port of Dover in Kent in the summer of 2022.
The first lorry, intercepted by Border Force officers on July 3, 2022, contained 90kg of ketamine and 50kg of cocaine concealed in boxes and even a Lidl shopping bag. The follow-up discovery occurred the ensuing month on August 12, when officers found 142kg of cocaine and 25kg of heroin hidden in an adapted fuel tank. The driver of the second lorry, Maris Fridvalds, a 64-year-old Latvian national, was sentenced to 14 years in March 2023 for his involvement as a courier in the drug smuggling operation.
Investigations found Burton’s fingerprints and DNA on the drug shipments and the modified fuel tank. Burton, a Liverpool native, had departed the UK in 2021 and was residing between the Netherlands and Spain. He was apprehended by Spanish authorities in August 2023 at Pacha nightclub in Ibiza for unrelated drug-related offenses. Operating under an alias at the time, Burton was later extradited to Germany, charged with drug offenses, and subsequently brought back to the UK in March 2024 by the National Extradition Unit officers from the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) Joint International Crime Centre.
Burton eventually pleaded guilty to four counts of importing Class A and B drugs. Banks, aged 25 and also from Liverpool, was initially arrested in December 2023; she admitted to a total of seven charges, including importing Class A drugs and money laundering. Banks confessed to aiding Burton’s criminal activities on the first day of her scheduled trial at Canterbury Crown Court on February 3. The NCA uncovered that between June 2022 and October 2023, she made monthly trips to the Netherlands and Spain to meet Burton.
Furthermore, an examination of Banks’ phone unveiled that she had transported cocaine and ketamine into the UK in her luggage on two occasions in August 2022 after visiting Burton in Amsterdam. Messages exchanged between Banks and Burton on July 5, 2022, shortly after the interception of the first drug-laden lorry, suggested their involvement in preparing and transporting the drugs together. Banks was also found selling fraudulent Covid-19 travel documents during the pandemic peak.
Both Burton and Banks are slated for sentencing at Canterbury Crown Court on February 11, facing the consequences of their illicit drug trafficking activities. This incident reveals the interconnected and widespread nature of drug networks across European borders, shedding light on the relentless efforts of law enforcement agencies to dismantle such operations and bring the perpetrators to justice.