Ex-Royal Marines jailed after child accidentally given cocaine as gift

Two former Royal Marines have been jailed for smuggling cocaine into the UK in boxes of Lego, after one of them was accidentally given to a child for his birthday.

The kilo of cocaine inside the gift was among 18kg that Jack Jones and Isaac Rasmussen, both 28, had brought illegally into the country from the Netherlands in DPD parcels.

One had been delivered to Rasmussen’s home in Whiston, Merseyside, but he was out so it was left with a neighbour. She unsuccessfully tried to return it over several weeks, until she was asked by her son’s girlfriend for birthday present ideas for a friend’s young son, and gave her the box, which had an image of a Lego fire engine on the front.

However, when the friend opened up the gift-wrapped present on her son’s birthday she discovered a solid white block of cocaine inside, Liverpool crown court heard.

Jones was jailed for 16-and-a-half years on Tuesday for conspiracy to import and supply drugs, and Rasmussen was sentenced to 10 years.

A third man, Paul Jones, 43, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years after his addresses were used for the packages to be sent to.