Overview
- Border Force officers recovered about 12 tonnes of vacuum‑packed cannabis hidden in roughly 1,200 boxes inside two shipping containers that arrived from Canada and were stopped on May 6.
- The Canada Border Services Agency identified the shipment and alerted UK Home Office analysts who tracked the containers to Southampton before Border Force searched them.
- Police executed warrants in South Wales on Tuesday, June 16, and arrested two men and one woman from Merthyr Tydfil, Ebbw Vale and Abertillery on suspicion of facilitating importation; all three remain in custody.
- Officials value the load at about £139 million and say it is Border Force's largest cannabis seizure, around four tonnes bigger than the previous record from 2017, depriving organised crime groups of substantial profits.
- The investigation is ongoing with the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit supported by South Wales Police and Gwent Police and no formal charges or prosecutions have yet been reported.