Fraudster hero of £1m drug sting

Diplomatic bag was used to carry cocaine from Peru as part of customs plot
to foil Nigerian crime syndicate
Arnot Mcwhinnie

COCAINE worth an estimated £1 million was smuggled into Scotland in a
diplomatic bag and seized by customs officers in a labyrinthine "sting" to
break a Peruvian drug gang.

A convicted fraudster, James "Rocky " Roxburgh, was recruited by customs as
a double agent to bring the load from Lima, Peru.

Mr Roxburgh conned drug barons into giving him £1 million worth of cocaine
which was smuggled from Lima to Edinburgh in a diplomatic bag.

Yesterday two of the men alleged to have been on the British end of the
operation were acquitted at the High Court in Glasgow. Last night, Mr
Roxburgh, who was a key witness at the trial, was beginning a new life with
his wife and two children under a new identity at a secret location.

Olayiwola Babayemi, 34, a Nigerian, whose meetings in London and telephone
conversations with Mr Roxburgh were monitored and taped, had been accused
of smuggling cocaine and being concerned in its supply. In evidence
Babayemi told his defence counsel, Herbert Kerrigan, QC, that he thought Mr
Roxburgh was going to Peru to smuggle computer chips and blank credit cards
to the UK.

It took the jury 50 minutes to bring a majority verdict of not proven on
both charges.

His coaccused, Alex George, 29, a Nigerian illegal immigrant who was
arrested with Mr Roxburgh and the cocaine consignment in an Edinburgh
hotel, was found not guilty of being concerned in the supply of cocaine. He
told his defence counsel, Tom Welsh, QC, in evidence he knew nothing about
drugs and had just been asked to give Mr Roxburgh money.

After yesterday's case it was disclosed that eight men two Peruvians and
six west Africans had been arrested in Lima and 20 kilograms of cocaine
seized as a direct result of Mr Roxburgh's bravery.

The operation run by a Nigerian crime syndicate was broken on 22 May this
year when customs investigators raided room 130 of the Grosvenor Hotel,
Grosvenor Street, Edinburgh. They seized a crocodile skin Gladstone bag,
the lining of which had a secret compartment containing plastic lilos
filled with 5.5kg of cocaine.

The story of Mr Roxburgh's part in it unfolded when he gave details to Jack
Davidson, QC, prosecuting. It began at Queen Street railway station in
Glasgow at the end of July 1996, when Mr Roxburgh, 47, met a Glasgow
criminal he had once shared a cell with. He was asked if he was interested
in being a drug courier.

Mr Roxburgh heard no more until March when he was summoned to London to
meet various people. He was offered $10,000 for the job which, he was told,
could take him to either Kathmandu, Karachi, Rio de Janeiro or Lisbon. That
day, Mr Roxburgh dialled the customs antidrugs freephone hotline.

Mr Roxburgh is a selfconfessed crook and fraudster. Nevertheless, as the
father of two young children he said detested drugs and those involved with
them because he did not want his kids to grow up in a drugs culture.

A customs "sting" began with Mr Roxburgh at its centre. The drug gang gave
him a return ticket from Amsterdam to Lima, plus an advance of a few
hundred dollars and two passports, the second to be used when he reentered
Britain because it would not alert British customs that he had been in
Peru, a cocaine producing country.

On 7 May Mr Roxburgh flew from Amsterdam to Lima, where two Scots
undercover customs investigators were already working with local police.

When a west African at the Peruvian end of the drug chain gave Mr Roxburgh
the black crocodile Gladstone bag that contained the drug he called his
customs handlers and gave them details of his flight home.

Arrangements had already been made for Mr Roxburgh to hand over the drugs
in the Grosvenor Hotel, but the operation was almost blown by alert
Peruvian customs officers who searched his bag and discovered the cocaine.

After the British Embassy stepped in Mr Roxburgh was freed and the drug bag
was taken back to the British Embassy. To ensure nothing else went wrong,
it was flown back in a diplomatic bag and he collected it at Edinburgh
airport.

Seconds after Alex George met Mr Roxburgh in his hotel room the customs men
pounced. Within hours police in Lima were rounding up the Peruvian end of
the chain.

A customs spokesman said: "We couldn't have done it without the help of
Rocky. He was undoubtedly a brave man who put his life at risk."

Mr Roxburgh, who was paid £9,000 by the customs for his help, is being
guarded under the witness protection scheme and will be offered a new
identity and relocation.