‘One slip up we all f***** mate’, one criminal warned another during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020. It was a frightening time for many. People were dying and little was known about how the virus could be stopped.

In the outside world, the country was getting used to a new normal. The streets were deserted as people were ordered to stay at home. For weeks and months, the conventional economy was left in limbo.

People were put in furlough or worked from their kitchen table. But in the criminal underworld, business was still booming.

The deserted streets posed problems for couriers moving huge amounts of cash and drugs, but it didn’t seem to put them off. The huge financial rewards of the cocaine trade were too much to resist, even in the face of a worldwide crisis.

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