MOST folks wouldn’t look twice on the mild-mannered former bus driver who had change into a cleaner to help his household.
A barely tubby middle-aged man, dwelling in Hendon in north London, Jesus Ruiz-Henao, now 64, had fastidiously curated a persona as a upstanding member of the neighborhood who had a charity serving to youngsters again residence.
Discovery+Ruiz-Henao claimed he by no means blended his bus driving together with his cocaine empire[/caption]
examine copyrightHe was answerable for bringing in round £1billion price of cocaine to the UK[/caption]
Discovery+The drug smuggler is now behind bars in a jail in Colombia[/caption]
Discovery+Ian Floyd was a part of the groups that introduced Ruiz-Henao down[/caption]
However in actuality, he was a ruthless drug trafficker who purchased £1billion price of cocaine into the UK and was on the centre of two totally different police investigations for his unlawful dealing.
In a brand new documentary on Discovery+, The Bus Driver: Britain’s Cocaine King, Ruiz-Henao boasted: “My life story is rather a lot like Hollywood film. I used to be doing the drug trafficking for over 10 years and I used to be arrested and sentenced for over a billion kilos of cocaine.
“I used to be like a pioneer of the cocaine within the UK.”
Lastly arrested within the early noughties, after 4 years of investigative work by the Nationwide Crime Squad and the Metropolitan Police, cops consider reckon Ruiz-Henao’s affable manner hid a a lot nastier aspect.
In an unique interview with The Solar, former Detective Sergeant Ian Floyd informed The Solar: “He’s a manipulator. He makes use of folks. And the specter of violence doesn’t need to be direct. It may be inherent. It may be perceived.
“Though he’s very softly spoken, not outwardly violent, there’s at all times that stage behind him the place folks will understand a risk, even when it’s not overt.”
Ruiz-Henao had spent his teenager years as a low stage cocaine supplier in Colombia following the loss of life of his father in 1974.
He acquired into the commerce as a fast and straightforward approach to earn a living – and it didn’t damage that a few of his cousins have been already working with cartels.
However when Ruiz-Henao misplaced a stash of medication and wasn’t in a position to pay what he owed, he was focused by gangs and shot within the abdomen, prompting a transfer to the UK in 1986.
He took his spouse, sister, and brother-in-law with him, claiming the transfer was to permit him to reside a standard life however, unable to repay the misplaced cash to cartels, he later admitted “If I didn’t transfer to the UK, I used to be already useless.”
With the assistance of his spouse, and native MP Jeremy Corbyn, the criminal was in a position to declare asylum within the UK, with indefinite proper to stay, and acquired a job driving a bus.
However he claims everybody saved asking him for cocaine due to his Colombian roots and 1989, simply two years after he started driving the 134 double-decker, he returned to promoting cocaine.
My life story is rather a lot like Hollywood film … I used to be like a pioneer of the cocaine within the UK
Jesus Ruiz-Henao
Initially, it could take Ruiz-Henao as much as 5 weeks to promote a kilo of cocaine that he had acquired by way of associates and family members again residence.
By 1993, he was promoting cocaine in bulk and needed to give up his bus driving job to focus extra on his burgeoning legal empire.
On the time of his arrest in November 2003, he and his brother-in-law, Mario Tascon, now 42, have been considered smuggling round £25million price of cocaine into the UK annually.
Idolising Escobar
GettyRuiz-Henao needed to be like Cartel boss Pablo Escobar[/caption]
Discovery+He claims to have met the drug supplier as a baby at a rally together with his father[/caption]
AP:Related PressCartels spend a big a part of their time delivery cocaine throughout the globe[/caption]
Within the documentary, the previous drug supplier brags about his lifetime of crime and ambition to be like Colombian cartel boss Pablo Escobar.
He even goes so far as to assert he met the infamous drug lord, saying: “My first bicycle in my life, I get it from the palms of Pablo Escobar.
“I used to be considering he has the facility, he has the cash. I wish to be highly effective like them. I wish to have every thing.”
However investigators who introduced down Ruiz-Henao in 2003 have slammed the kingpin as a “funds model” of the dreaded cartel boss.
We used to get 20 to 30 prostitutes. They’d go across the swimming pool simply carrying their knickers and we’d celebration for 2 to a few days there
Jesus Ruiz-Henao
Former Detective Sergeant Steve Lear, who was a part of the staff who put Ruiz-Henao behind bars, mentioned: “The story about him getting a motorcycle from Pablo Escobar, I believe that’s simply full hogwash. They’re from utterly totally different elements of Colombia.”
Ex-Detective Sergeant Ian Floyd added: “He was a funds model of what he needed to be, which was Pablo.”
Household connections
Discovery+Ruiz-Henao had cousins working for the Norte Valle Cartel which is how he sourced his medication[/caption]
examine copyrightRuiz-Henao had his brother-in-law Tascon (R) as his second in command, preserving him shut[/caption]
Ruiz-Henao had quick access to the medication because of family members within the harmful Norte Valle Cartel, which rose to prominence after the Medellín Cartel fell aside following Escobar’s loss of life in 1993 and the rival Cali Cartel have been destroyed by police.
The cartel equipped London-based Ruiz-Henao with a whole bunch of kilos of cocaine.
In return, he despatched tens of millions of kilos again by way of varied routes to pay for the medication from wire switch providers, folks couriering the money personally and even by way of his charity allegedly serving to poor youngsters in Colombia.
One in all his cash launderers, Fernando Carranza Reyes who labored on the Le Grand Colombia, had change into a police informant and allowed cops to construct a case across the cash being despatched again to the nation.
Intelligent concealments
Discovery+Former DS Steve Lear was tasked with placing Ruiz-Henao behind bars[/caption]
ReutersUK police labored with Colombian authorities to carry Ruiz-Henao down (inventory pic)[/caption]
Dan CharityCartel’s are nonetheless utilizing submarines to ferry medication in 2025, a long time after Ruiz-Henao’s staff did[/caption]
GettyMedicine have been hidden in tinned pineapples by the cartels[/caption]
As bigger and bigger portions have been being shipped to the UK within the early noughties, Ruiz-Henao and the cartel grew to become extra creative with their strategies of transportation.
Ian defined: “There have been shipments out of Colombia in submarines, selfmade submarines which had a tonne of cocaine on it, smuggling cocaine in by way of pineapples, dissolved into pineapple juice. 1000’s upon 1000’s of cans have been imported.”
One other cocaine importation Ian’s staff intercepted was impregnated into a girl’s suitcase.
“The suitcase she was carrying, we may inform from a swab take a look at, contained cocaine,” he mentioned.
“After we weighed the suitcase, it was 5 kilos heavier than a standard suitcase of that description. They’d managed to dissolve the cocaine into the plastic, however we couldn’t get it out.”
The police have been by no means in a position to recuperate the medication from the plastic.
Whereas the cops couldn’t determine it out, the cartel had flown over a specialist chemist to extract the Class A drug.
Ruiz-Henao purchased a small home close to Clacton-on-Sea together with his drug earnings and arrange a house laboratory for the cocaine to be extracted from the plastic.
Ruiz-Henao mentioned: “There’s an enormous container of chemical compounds put in there and simply combine it up and the cocaine will sink and the plastic, it floats up.”
He additionally boasted of getting customs officers on his payroll to make sure the laced suitcases and the passengers bringing them have been in a position to get by way of the border with out points.
Lavish holidays
Discovery+Ruiz-Henao would splash the money on vacation’s outdoors of the UK considering cops wouldn’t know[/caption]
Discovery+Now, Ruiz-Henao is languishing in La Picota jail in Colombia[/caption]
The criminal believed that as a result of he didn’t spend lavishly within the UK and paid somebody to attend a cleansing job as him, that cops weren’t going to note him.
However he did go wild on journeys overseas to Spain and different nations, the place he felt it was protected to splash the money.
Ruiz-Henao boasted: “We used to get 20 to 30 prostitutes. They’d go across the swimming pool simply carrying their knickers and we’d celebration for 2 to a few days there.”
However he wasn’t as discrete as he thought. Below new guidelines within the early 2000s, the cops have been in a position to get entry to his bank cards.
Steve mentioned: “One of many issues that we utilized in monetary investigation in his case, was the amount of cash that he had spent utilising his bank cards and his financial institution playing cards over his respectable earnings.
“He was allegedly incomes £45,000 per 12 months as a cleaner and he was spending, I believe, round about to £250,000.”
And Ian’s staff have been monitoring the drug cash to Colombia after which again to Ruiz-Henao.
The groups mixed forces after each posting surveillance on a property belonging to the kingpin.
This meant that, once they swooped in to arrest Ruiz-Henao and the gang in November 2003, they have been assured that he’d haven’t any alternative however to plead responsible and he did.
In 2006, Ruiz was sentenced to 19 years in jail after pleading responsible for conspiracy to produce class A medication. He was handed an additional ten years for a responsible plea for cash laundering.
Following the arrest of Ruiz-Henao and his second in command Tascon, the value of cocaine went up 50 per cent, indicating the gang’s giant share of the market.
However cops garbage the crooks declare that he pioneered cocaine within the UK.
Ian mentioned: “He was a cog within the wheel of the availability of cocaine. And he was in all probability one of many bigger cogs. However I wouldn’t essentially put it the entire exponential rise in cocaine demand, all the way down to him.
“Cocaine was the changing into the drug of alternative, and the demand for it was there, and he was considered one of many supplying it.”
After serving his sentence within the UK, Jesus Ruiz-Henao was deported to Colombia, the place he was as soon as
- The Bus Driver: Britain’s Cocaine King, streaming completely on discovery+ from August eleventh
