Gas engineers find huge drugs stash in Shepherd’s Bush home

One of the biggest hauls of MDMA and crystal meth found by the Met in recent years was discovered by gas engineers during a routine check of the fittings in the drug dealer’s home.

Patrick Scotland, 28, of Canada Way, on the White City Estate, Shepherd’s Bush had been sent drugs packages from overseas hidden in toys.

He has pleaded guilty to drug charges including the importing and selling of Class A and B drugs with a combined street-value of approximately £2.3 million.

It was believed to be the largest seizure of MDMA and crystal meth from a residential address in the UK.

Scotland admitted at Isleworth Crown Court yesterday to:

•  3 x possession with intent to supply a Class A drug (MDMA, LSD, Methylamphetamine)
• 2 x possession with intent to supply a Class B drug (Ketamine, Cannabis Resin)
• fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a class A drug
• Possession of a weapon for the discharge of a noxious liquid/gas/electrical incapacitation device

Scotland will be sentenced at the same court tomorrow.

Routine checks by Border Force officers on packages addressed to Scotland were intercepted and found to be a brown crystalline substance concealed within children’s toys. The substance was tested and found to be MDMA.

On Wednesday, February 12 police were alerted by council staff – who were completing routine gas safety checks at Scotland’s address – to suspected Class A drugs in his home.

Cops found sealed bags and tupperware tubs containing pills and powders including several kilos of crystal meth, MDMA and cocaine, 185,000 ecstasy pills, eight kilos of cannabis resin and over 10,000 LSD tabs, along with drug paraphernalia.

Officers from the Met’s Central West Command Unit, who led the operation, arrested Scotland that day and recovered drugs under a sofa, along with a laptop. He was interviewed at a nearby police station and charged the following day.

The quantity of drugs seized are estimated to hold a street value of approximately £2.3 million – the largest known seizure of MDMA and crystal meth from a home in the UK to date.

It also appears to be the first seizure of its kind after dismantling of a Dark Web drugs site in the UK. Scotland was linked to the site post-arrest and the drugs advertised were identified as the same as those recovered from his address. The pills were linked to Scotland due to the unique motifs stamped on them.

Detective Sergeant Kieran Curry, of the Central West Gangs Unit said: “This is a fantastic example of a collaborative effort to crackdown on drug-related criminality which ultimately enabled us to remove a vast amount of Class A and B drugs from the streets of London.”