Inside the quiet suburban life of a secret £120m cocaine drug baron
A £120million cocaine baron ran his international drug smuggling operation from a suburban bungalow... and had a pet dog called Charlie. Peter Lamb, 66, was rolling in cash thanks to high grade narcotics, hidden in rolls of fake turf.
Neighbours in the quiet street told how he loved to potter in his back garden. He was described as a 'Cockney geezer' who was only seen walking his dogs in Felling, Gateshead.
He would often stop to pass the time of day with his placid German shepherd, Ted, and a cockapoo named Charlie. The silver-haired pensioner may have kept a low profile at home. But his trips abroad came to the attention of Dutch authorities and Britain's National Crime Agency.
Lamb was covertly photographed on a forklift truck, carrying the rolls of turf around his premises in Stockton-on-Tees and a linked warehouse in Newcastle. Raids were carried out and the grass was found to have plastic tubes inside with compartments intended to conceal large amounts of cocaine.
Drugs with a street value of £13m were found, and paperwork revealed many more consignments had found their way into Britain, amounting to £120m worth of the drug. He was jailed for 17 years last week at Newcastle crown court.
A resident of Mayfair Gardens in Gateshead where he lived told the Mirror: "He will be missing his dogs inside. He was always with them when you saw him. He had a German Shepherd called 'Ted' and the cockapoo which he had just been seen with recently. That was called Charlie. I had never thought of it before but that is quite an appropriate name for the dog really."
He added: "He was a real Cockney geezer, not a Geordie. You would see him with his children or grandchildren, but he lived alone. He had been here for about a year. I only ever spoke with him when I was out with the dogs but he would always stop and say hello.
"It was always 'alright mate?' It was a shock to read about the case. If he does 17 years, he will be 83 when he gets out.
"But they reckon he will be out in 10." A man whose parents lived on the street joked: "I don't know him at all but I heard about the case; it is not that unusual for Felling really."
Another neighbour said: "If anyone had told me that Peter was mixed up in drug smuggling I would have laughed.
"It just goes to show that you have no idea who you are living next door to. When the police turned up there was absolute shock."
Near the warehouse in Gosforth, Newcastle, no one had seen a single customer arrive or leave after a year of trading.
One tradesman on the estate said: "He would unload rolls of turf on his forklift and put them into his unit. The rolls were stiff in the middle but flopping down at the ends. It seems obvious now that they had something pushed into the centre of them. But no one suspected a thing at the time."
Another business neighbour of Lamb's said: "He seemed like a nice old bloke to me, he'd set up a turf business. He even offered me a roll for my garden at home. I'm quite glad now that I didn't take him up on it."
Lamb was eventually found to have smuggled one-and-a-half tonnes of cocaine over the course of a year. He was caught in May 2024 after taking a receipt of a lorry-load of fake grass, inside which were several custom-built rolls.
The delivery was one of 20 he had taken into his hands over 11 months, the last of which was intercepted by Dutch authorities, who removed the drugs several days prior. Lamb admitted conspiracy to fraudulently evade prohibition on importation of a Class A drug.
Judge Gavin Doig jailed him for 17 years last week and told him: "You played a crucial role in the importation into this country of nearly a tonne and a half of cocaine."
Judge Doig said Lamb's businesses were "set up as a front from the importation of cocaine" and that the artificial grass was simply "left in the warehouse". The judge added it was a "significant conspiracy".
Lamb has significant health problems and admitted he had been an "idiot" to get involved in something he was unable to get out of. Officers identified that Lamb received 20 deliveries containing a total of 60 rolls of grass, which they found at the warehouses.
Twenty of the rolls had been used to hide drugs, so investigators were able to assess that Lamb had conspired to import around one and a half tonnes of cocaine, with an estimated street value of almost £120m.
NCA senior investigating officer Al Mullen said: "Artificial grass is one of the more unusual concealments I've seen used to smuggle cocaine but no matter what tactics criminals use, the NCA will find both the drugs and the importers.
"We caught Lamb red-handed and uncovered his year-long conspiracy to flood UK streets with one-and-a-half tonnes of the drug. Cocaine destroys communities and lives, but this joint operation with officers in the Netherlands has disrupted its supply in the UK."
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