A man arrested at an Ibiza nightclub has been prosecuted along with his ex-partner for orchestrating two large-scale drug importations following an investigation by the British National Crime Agency (NCA). The details of the plot hatched by Eddie Burton, 23have just been revealed, as his ex-partner, Sian Banks, 25, has just pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting his criminal enterprise during the first day of his trial at Canterbury Crown Court on February 3, the NCA reports in a press release.
Burton was living in mainland Europe at the time when two trucks containing heroin, cocaine and ketamine were intercepted at the port of Dover (UK) in the summer of 2022. The drugs weighed a total of 307 kilos and has an estimated value on the illegal market of 24 million euros.
Border Force agents stopped the first truck on July 3 and found 90 kilos of ketamine and 50 kilos of cocaine packed in boxes and a Lidl shopping bag. The second truck was intercepted just six weeks later, on August 12.
The agents discovered 142 kilos of cocaine and 25 kilos of heroin in a fuel tank modified to hide the drug. The driver of the vehicle, 64-year-old Latvian Maris Fridvalds, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in March 2023 for his role as a transporter in the attempted drug importation.
Arrest in Ibiza and fingerprinting
Forensics found burton’s fingerprints and DNA on both shipments of drugs and on the adapted fuel tank. Investigators from the National Crime Agency (NCA) launched a search for Burton, who was living between the Netherlands and Spain after moving from the UK in early 2021.
He was arrested by the Spanish police in August 2023 in a discotheque in Ibiza for unrelated drug trafficking offenses. At the time, he was using an alias to try to evade detection. After being extradited to Germany and charged with drug-related offenses, he was returned to the UK in March 2024 by specialist officers from the NCA’s Joint International Crime Centre (JICC) National Extradition Unit.
Burton subsequently pleaded guilty to four counts of class A and B drug trafficking. Sian Banks, also from Liverpool, pleaded guilty to a total of seven charges on February 3, including importation of class A drugs and money laundering.
Banks was first arrested in December 2023. Inquiries as part of the NCA investigation found that between June 2022 and October 2023 she traveled to the Netherlands and Spain on a monthly basis to visit Burton. In addition, an investigation of his phone showed that on two occasions in August 2022 he smuggled cocaine and ketamine into the UK in his luggage after visiting Burton in Amsterdam.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.