Robert Daniel Flook

Robert Flook, convicted of smuggling tons of cocaine and dagga from SA to the UK, will soon know how many years he will spend behind bars.
Flook is believed to be a senior member of the syndicate which, for six years, used front companies to send shipments of drugs hidden in garden furniture and mirrors.
Three men suspected of being Flook's South African connections were arrested in Durban last year .In the early years, Flook set up a tourism business that organised sport packages for UK residents to visit South Africa and watch rugby matches and golf tournaments.
It was through these tours, police believe, that Flook made the connections he needed to start smuggling drugs. Although "unemployed", he lived a life of luxury.
Flook was to be sentenced at the Blackfriar Crown Court in London. But in a last-minute twist, the judge fell ill and the sentencing has been postponed.
Flook's arrest was linked to the largest dagga seizure in the history of London's Metropolitan Police and the arrest of the trio in Durban saw South Africa's second largest cocaine bust.
Flook (46) was arrested in an operation that saw eight tons of dagga seized at Felixstowe port. Hidden inside a consignment of SA garden furniture, it had a UK street value of R392-million.
Flook was convicted last month of conspiracy to smuggle 150kg of cocaine and eight tons of dagga into the UK. But during the trial, police showed how the syndicate snuck 11 shipments of dagga and four of cocaine into the UK between 2001 and 2006 - with a street value of R4,9-billion.
The gang's ringleader, Robert Flook, He has been convicted of drugs trafficking and is currently awaiting sentence in London. Tutton, 56, and MacKinnon, 35, were part of a syndicate of which Briton Robert Flook was a kingpin. Flook has been convicted in London of 11 counts of dealing in drug dependence substances. Tutton and MacKinnon centred their criminal acts near Durban harbour which, it was said during the trial, the drug industry regarded as a low-risk gateway for drugs.
The drugs were in increasing quantities sent from Latin America to Durban for distribution to the United Kingdom mainly, other parts of Europe and less to other countries, Senior Superintendent Devin Naicker, who heads the fight against drugs in South Africa, told the court.
The authorities did not have enough facilities to check the more than a million containers passing through Durban harbour a year, Naicker said.
Tutton and MacKinnon processed some drugs in a Pinetown warehouse but when the dagga was seized they moved operations to Tongaat.street value of dagga at R1,30 a gram and estimated that the more than 290 117kg seized was worth R377 152 240.
The SAPS said about 170,5 hectares of dagga fields - which might have yielded a crop weighing 91 769kg, worth an estimated R119 300 million - were sprayed in the Eastern Cape
Naicker said that stern steps should be taken to combat the sale and use of dagga, which was regarded as a gateway to worse drugs. Many hopeless drug addicts said that their first drug was dagga.
The drug lords sold dagga to generate funds to buy the dangerous drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
Drug mules, who were often down-and-outs, were offered between R15 000 and R50 000 to take consignments from country to country.
Hundreds of mules are languishing in prisons in various countries.
He said that the "bad guys who had lots of money had no law but the poor guys had plenty of law." The drug industry was huge with networks that traded just about every place.
Heuer said that Tutton and MacKinnon had shown no remorse for their crimes. This lack of contrition did not influence the sentence he imposed but showed the type of people they were.
He said Tutton had falsified documention and used false identities to try to disguise their activities and had tailored his evidence to try to meet the exigencies ranged against them.
Tutton tried to punch a reporter who photographed them in the court building.
Their former co-accused, Ernie Smith, of Umhlanga, was found not guilty of the charges at a previous hearing. Heuer said that although there was a suspicion that he knew about the activities it was not enough to convict in South Africa. - Sapa