A former ticket tout was arrested entering Anfield Stadium for a Liverpool FC match and ended up facing nearly two decades behind bars.


Robert Bennett enlisted the services of employee Peter McQuade in order to facilitate the smuggling of millions of pounds of the Class A drug through the Port of Liverpool. He also boasted contacts with close links to suppliers in Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica.



Liverpool Crown Court heard the 50-year-old utilised the handle "Dior6" on EncroChat before the encrypted communications platform was infiltrated by French police in 2020. Messages obtained by law enforcement authorities detailed his involvement in the importation of 97kg of cocaine from Holland on April 9 that year.

Martin Snowdon, prosecuting, described how Bennett, originally from Huyton but of Smithy Glen Drive in Orrell, was involved in "discussions about the transportation arrangements and costs" of this shipment. He was assigned a 2kg portion of the total delivery for a price of £58,225 and charged £2,500 for each kilogram imported - a fee to be split between himself and the user of the handle "FullFlock".

In return, Bennett organised for a driver to receive the consignment. This included providing a burner phone for his recruit before "taking the blower off him" afterwards.


Over the coming days, Full Flock arranged for the collection of the "taxi money" to be handed over to Bennett and given on to the courier. Bennett and his associate spoke of making £216,000 between them after deducting £45,000 in expenses, while he also stood to net a profit of £17,775 on his share of the cocaine.