A Russian man caught with £500,000 led detectives to a huge cannabis haul linked to a murky underworld figure known only as “Prince Charles”.
Police stopped Evgeny Zhilkin driving through Huyton in a black Audi with the cash hidden inside a suitcase and a secret compartment.
DNA on the suitcase in turn led them to the home of Brian Coogan, who was storing more than £1m of cannabis imported from Spain.
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Liverpool Crown Court today heard Zhilkin was carrying a mobile phone featuring the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
Owen Edwards, prosecuting, said: “Messages showed he had been acting as a courier in Liverpool, instructed by a handler who calls himself Prince Charles.”
There is no suggestion that The Prince of Wales is in any way connected to these events.
The court heard the extraordinary drug plot unravelled after police spotted the Audi on March 15 this year.
Mr Edwards said: “An expensive car in an area in which drugs were sold was checked and found to be insured to a London address.
“It stood out in Covid times. Police followed the car, which accelerated away from Malta Close.”
Zhilkin, 33, pulled over, but kept reaching into his pocket and was asked for his ID.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
He produced a Russian Federation passport, which showed he entered the UK on January 31 on a tourist visa.
Mr Edwards said the car smelled of cannabis and on the rear passenger seat was a white suitcase.
He said: “It was heavy and within the inner compartment was a substantial quantity of Bank of England notes.
“Zhilkin said ‘please don’t take my money, I’m buying a house, there is £500,000’.”
The suitcase contained £450,280 and inside a secret hydraulic “hide” – opened with a key fob – was a further £50,021.
Zhilkin later told police he picked the cash up on behalf of a friend who was buying a house and denied knowing it was drug money.
Detectives discovered he had travelled to Liverpool the day before and stayed over at the Picture House apartments, then travelled to Huyton at around 10am.
On the suitcase was found the DNA of Zhilkin and 50-year-old Coogan.
Mr Edwards said Zhilkin’s phone was tough to crack, thanks to the encrypted app – on which he used the codename Shalnoy – and texts in both Russian and English.
He said messages showed “a similar pattern in the past”, that the word “token” was used to refer to cash deliveries, and that Zhilkin was aware of the amounts of money involved.
(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Police arrested Coogan when they raided his home in Ironside Road, Huyton on June 29.
The prosecutor said: “From his kitchen and living room, cardboard boxes containing large quantities of blocks or slates of cannabis resin were recovered.”
He added: “This appeared to have been imported from Spain. There was a Spanish connection to Mr Zhilkin’s handler.”
There was 83kg of cannabis resin, with a street value between £830,000 and £1,245,000, and 88g of cannabis bush, valued between £3,500 and £4,500.
A further £386,585 was found inside a suitcase, before Coogan gave a no comment interview.
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Zhilkin, of no fixed address, who has no previous convictions, admitted two counts of possessing criminal property.
Coogan, who has 12 previous convictions for 23 offences, admitted two counts of possessing criminal property and two counts of possessing cannabis with intent to supply.
He was jailed for 12 months for possessing cannabis with intent to supply in 2008, after he was caught with just under a kilo of the drug in a car.
Matthew Buckland, defending Coogan, said he was “a man old enough to know far better than to involve himself in this type of thing, but a man with a history of substance misuse and alcohol addiction”.
He said the addict was “happy to store” what was asked of him “in return for payment or payment in kind”.
Mr Buckland said: “He was somewhat vulnerable and was acting under express instruction at all times.”
He said: “At that level, hundreds of thousands of pounds, there can only be serious crime underpinning what is taking place.”
The lawyer also conceded that Coogan, who has recently been diagnosed with COPD, was a “willing participant” and not a “victim”.
However, he said: “He’s an unsophisticated, useful pawn for others.”
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John Horgan, defending Zhilkin, said he was a courier, it wasn’t his Audi or “fancy phone”, and he was told where to go and what to do by others.
He argued this meant Zhilkin’s culpability shouldn’t be classed as “high” in sentencing guidelines, adding: “If for example the court had Prince Charles in the dock, as his name was in the case…”
Judge David Swinnerton interjected: “Prince Charles in inverted commas we should say.”
Mr Horgan said: “Prince Charles in inverted commas… then in my respectful submission that would be the high culpability category.”
He said “remorseful” Zhilkin, who had been “foolish”, was the primary carer for his mum, wife and daughter in Moscow.
Judge Swinnerton said a reference referred to Zhilkin being the sole carer for his elderly mother.
The judge said this point “would be stronger if he hadn’t been in England, acting criminally for the previous three months”.
Mr Horgan said Zhilkin had spent six months in custody, adding: “He tells me and it won’t surprise the court, he’s the only person in Altcourse who speaks Russian.”
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Judge Swinnerton told the pair: “Both of you have become involved in playing your roles with an organised crime gang.
“That group plainly has links to Spain. There are messages linking them and indeed linking you Mr Zhilkin to Spain, and the cannabis resin, the 83kg, appears to have come from or at least through Spain.”
The judge added: “This was a well organised crime group moving substantial amounts of cannabis.”
He jailed Zhilkin, who he said appeared to have been a courier “for a couple of months”, for three years and four months.
Judge Swinnerton said it was “cannabis dealing on a very, very large scale” and jailed Coogan for five years.
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