Serving prisoner jailed for commercial-scale operation to supply drugs in prison

A serving prisoner who played a leading role in organising the production and supply of drugs in prisons has been jailed today.

Alexander Mullings, 33, was sentenced for conspiracies to produce and supply various illegal drugs both inside and outside of prison, whilst himself a serving prisoner at HMP Swaleside in Kent.

Mullings and fellow conspirators, Alexandra Nicolaou, 53, Hamza Ahmed, 30, and Kieran Benoit, 32, were jailed for a combined total of 34 years.

Ahmed Binfgih, 59, Danyaal Msaouri-Coulson, 23, Katriye Kaplan, 32, Charlotte Finch, 22, Dania Wilson, 26, were also sentenced today.

Over a three-year period between 2016 and 2019, Mullings used a network of associates, including his own mother, to establish a commercial-scale enterprise that smuggled controlled substances including cannabis, Spice, steroids, into HMP Swaleside, Wormwood Scrubs and other prisons.

His network also distributed heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine and synthetic opioids across London and the South-East.

As the ringleader, Mullings orchestrated the whole operation using unauthorised mobile phones, many of which were purchased by his mother, Alexandra Nicolaou, and drones to fly the drugs into prison.

Whilst her son played a leading role, Nicolaou held a significant operational and management role, purchasing more than 73 mobile phones over a 21-month period.

She also bought other items that were important to the operation including a spare battery for a drone that was used to smuggle packages into prison and a 20-tonne hydraulic press used to press blocks of heroin.

Mobile phone analysis proved that Mullings was using unauthorised mobile phones to organise various production and supply operations, including the use of drones to transport packages over prison walls.

The prosecution case was that having been driven to the Isle of Sheppey and back by Binfgih, Msaouri-Coulson operated drones used to fly packages of drugs into prison.

Packages were recovered using a hook attached to a mop handle that was discovered in fellow inmate Hamza Ahmed’s cell, along with several packages of cannabis, Spice, steroids and mobile phone accessories.

Mullings, Nicolaou, Finch, and Wilson also conspired together on a large-scale and regular organised operation to prepare and supply sheets of paper, often disguised as privileged legal correspondence, that were impregnated with Spice and smuggled into prison via post or during social visits.

It also became evident that the supply of Spice was on a much larger scale than just smuggling quantities into HMP Swaleside.

Mullings, together with Ahmed, Finch, Wilson and Benoit, conspired to supply Swaleside, Wormwood Scrubs and other prisons nationwide with Spice, demonstrating the extent to which Mullings was able to control and arrange the movement of drugs across the country.

His operation became so brazen that they started advertising liquid spice for sale on social media, essentially to enable other people to impregnate their own paper with Spice before smuggling it into prisons.

As a man with significant contacts and influence, Mullings used young women on the outside to facilitate the production and supply of drugs. Dania Wilson took the orders for sheets of Spice, which she would pass onto Mullings, who then instructed Charlotte Finch to prepare and send it.

Further, Wilson purchased large quantities of chemicals used in the preparation of drugs that were later found at her house, which she was clearly using to prepare and produce illegal drugs.

Even whilst the police were searching Wilson’s home, the postman delivered a package containing an unopened one litre bottle of ethanol.

As time moved on, Mullings began to organise the commercial supply of heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine. He was directly involved in arranging for drugs to be stored at various locations outside of prison and was intimately involved in the arrangements for cocaine to be “cooked” and turned into crack cocaine. He used his own family in Islington to store and distribute the drugs, and a female courier, both separately convicted.

He used the same model to prepare and supply heroin, a synthetic heroin substitute known as “pink”, furanylfentanyl and fentanyl between 2018 and 2019.

At this point, messages showed that Mullings was organising the manufacture of synthetic opioids, including obtaining the necessary apparatus, a recipe, sourcing chemicals from China and discussing how to significantly upscale production once his associates were sufficiently skilled and experienced.

He was making all the necessary preparations for the large-scale production of fentanyl, including the purchase of sophisticated chemical lab equipment from eBay, and 1.5kg of chemicals used in the production of fentanyl from China.

Expert evidence estimated that when applying the formula Mullings had obtained to manufacture fentanyl, they could have produced a yield somewhere in the region of 75kg, at a wholesale value of more than £1.5million.

Mullings and all his conspirators sentenced today were also convicted of the unauthorised transmission of thousands of messages and calls from prison.

Robert Hutchinson, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “This complex and challenging prosecution, with a trial lasting more than six months, has disrupted a sophisticated and commercial-scale operation to flood prisons with a dangerous cocktail of illegal drugs.

“Alexander Mullings tried to claim that he was just a middleman, but there is no doubt that he was front and centre of the enterprise, controlling and directing his co-conspirators from his prison cell.

“All defendants showed a blatant disregard for the ban on mobile phones in prison, imperative for the discipline and safety of inmates, on an almost daily basis.

“Not only did they all know they were in contact with a prisoner, but they also knew that they were facilitating ongoing crime by Mullings and themselves.

“Mullings and each of his associates in this case played their own significant part in producing and supplying drugs worth thousands of pounds and must now face substantial terms of imprisonment as a consequence for their crimes.”