A 40-year-old truck driver was caught attempting to smuggle nearly $10 million worth of cocaine into England. The drugs were concealed within a 28-pallet shipment of clothing from Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS brand. The incident led to a 13½-year prison sentence for Jakub Jan Konkel, as determined by a U.K. court on Monday.
Konkel, a Polish national, transported the shipment from the Netherlands to Essex using a customized vehicle. The cocaine, weighing almost 200 lbs, was hidden in 2.2 lb units inside a compartment in the truck’s back doors. He received $5,243 to carry out the illegal transport.
Border officials stopped Konkel at a port northeast of London following his arrival on a ferry from the Hook of Holland. An X-ray scan of the cargo revealed the hidden drugs. Authorities suspect the cocaine was loaded during a brief stop recorded by Konkel’s tachograph, which he failed to mention during interviews with law enforcement.
According to the U.K.’s National Crime Agency, the companies involved in the import and export of the clothing had no connection to the drug-smuggling operation, and the shipment was otherwise legitimate.
SKIMS, co-founded by Kardashian in 2019, is valued at $5 billion. Kim Kardashian’s personal net worth is estimated by Forbes at nearly $2 billion.
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