A British man who snorted cocaine off Pablo Escobar's grave and vowed 'never to return' to Colombia after getting in a brawl with local cartels has been put behind bars for drug dealing. Steven Semmens and four other cocaine conspirators were sentenced to more than 52 years between them in prison for their involvement in selling the Class A drug.
Swansea Crown Court heard that Semmens and the other defendants were connected with trafficking large quantities of cocaine into South Wales. Semmens was also previously filmed spilling cocaine on the gravestone of infamous drug lord, Pablo Escobar while on a trip to South America in 2018.
The defendant said that he had carried out the act as part of a bet but he didn't think things would go as far as they did as his barrister told the court that Semmens' disrespectful actions had not gone down well with some Colombian criminals. Semmens and another defendant Shane White had planned to import kilos of cocaine to the UK from South America but the court heard that not a single gram successfully arrived and there was 'something almost comical about their ineptitude'.
Another defendant, Swansea plumber Andrew Botto had been using a shipping container hidden behind camouflage netting and fencing just yards away from a busy road as a base for his independent cocaine-dealing business. Police found a 1kg block of high-purity cocaine in a cool bag when they forced entry to the locked unit in May last year along with bags, weighing scales and disposable gloves.
Botto was found to have more than £2,000 cash in his trouser pockets when he was arrested later that day. Semmens - also known as Steven Pascoe, 39, of Port Talbot; Botto, 34, of Swansea; White, 34, of Port Talbot; and Ieuan Emlyn Williams, 37, also from Port Talbot all previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine between April 2020 and August 2021, when they appeared in the dock for sentencing on Thursday.
Semmens and White also confessed to conspiracy to import cocaine. Botto also pleaded guilty to a separate conspiracy to supply cocaine while White also previously admitted conspiracy to import cannabis. Semmens previously revealed that he had been chucked out of Colombia by police for sniffing cocaine off Escobar's grave even though he tried to go unnoticed by changing his appearance.
He said that the 'naive' prank made it very 'awkward' for him to get a job and added: "I just thought it would be a laugh, I didn't think it would go this far... I was drunk at the time... I've been bombarded with threats that I'm going to get skinned alive."
Andrew Taylor, for Semmens, told the court that his client had led an "unusual and unfortunate" life so far after being raised by his stepfather in Spain where he learnt the language before starting a relationship with a Colombian woman and moving to South America. Judge Huw Rees said the defendants had been involved in the commercial-scale trafficking and dealing of the cocaine.
He said: "It goes without saying, but it seemingly needs to be said, sheer greed led you to profit from selling an insidious Class A drug without a thought or a care about the misery or danger being inflicted on others. To put it in short form - you were in it for the money and you must pay the consequences for your avarice".
With discounted sentences for their guilty pleas he handed Semmens 13 and a half years behind bars, White was given a sentence of 15 years and four months, Botto received nine years and seven months jail time and William will serve six years in prison.
As part of the same drug operation Richard Philip Ronald Gerrard, 42, of Heysham, Lancashire, had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine alongside Semmens, White, Botto, and Williams and he has already been sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison.
21-year-old Luke Thomas of North Cornelly was also previously sentenced to six months in jail suspended for 12 months and was ordered to do 180 hours of unpaid work for his involvement in supplying cannabis which White had imported.
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