View ImageGavin Smith (Image: South Wales Police)

Add to preferred sourcesNewsJason Evans Court reporter04:07, 23 Oct 2026Updated 05:57, 23 Oct 2026A dad living in a caravan in Swansea hatched a plan with a mysterious contact known only as 'The Baron' to smuggle drugs from Wales to New Zealand, a court has heard.

Gavin Smith conspired with the clandestine Kiwi to ship kilos of cocaine and ketamine hidden inside hollowed-out rope to the other side of the world.

But the operation was exposed after police arrested Smith for unrelated matters and found the unit on an industrial estate from where he was running a cannabis-dealing business and then got access to his communications on the encrypted Signal app.

The former plumber has now been locked up for six years and nine months.

Ian Wright, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court – which was sitting remotely in Cardiff Magistrates' Court – that on March 28 this year officers went to Smith's caravan in Pontlliw to arrest him on unrelated matters. He said in the caravan officers found a vacuum-packed bag containing a kilo of cannabis along with quantities of ketamine, cocaine, and psilocybin – the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.

Also in the caravan were digital weighing scales, a coffee grinder containing white powder which was being used to cut drugs, a drug press hidden under a bed, and coffee pods which appeared to be intended to store drugs in.

The court heard that officers recovered Smith's phone from the microwave in the caravan and on the device officers found messages which showed the 44-year-old had been involved in dealing cannabis in half-kilo quantities over the previous 10 years. For the latest court stories sign up to our crime newsletter

Also on the phone was information which led officers to a storage unit Smith was renting at Hendy Industrial Park. In the unit officers found cardboard boxes labelled with different strains of cannabis and in the boxes police found a total of 15 vacuum-sealed bags of cannabis each of one pound in weight. Police also found £678 in cash and a notebook in which was written what appeared to be 12 random words. The court heard that these words turned out to be crypto currency recovery seed phrases which allowed officers to access to Smith's crypto wallet. The wallet was found to contain £5,763.

The prosecutor said on the phone police also found a large number of messages which Smith had been exchanging on the encrypted Signal app with a contact known as The Baron who appeared to live in New Zealand.

In the messages Smith said he could supply kilos of ketamine at £2,000 per kilo and The Baron suggested the drug could be smuggled into New Zealand inside shipments of rope. He told Smith to hollow out the core of lengths of rope and then use an air compressor to force the ketamine inside before sealing the rope in bags with a vacuum sealer. Smith told The Baron that if the plan worked he had a contact who could provide him with five or six kilos of ketamine a week.

The court heard The Baron asked Smith for the details of his crypto wallet and then on April 1 he messaged the defendant again to tell him the shipment of rope had arrived successfully in New Zealand. Don't let an algorithm decide what Welsh news you see - click here to add WalesOnline as your preferred Google source.

The prosecutor said the pair then began discussing using the rope method to ship cocaine to New Zealand, with The Baron telling Smith he had a contact in Manchester who could supply him with the drug. A price of £4,000 for every kilo of cocaine packaged and sent to New Zealand was agreed and the pair discussed sending an initial two kilos a week with the shipments increasing to four kilos a week if all went well.

The court heard that in one exchange in April The Baron told the defendant that the cocaine would be delivered to him in three days and the defendant said he was ready but would need to buy a new shrink-wrap heater from B&Q. The court heard there was no evidence that Smith actually did send any cocaine to New Zealand as per their discussions.

The prosecutor said following his arrest the defendant answered "no comment" to all questions asked in interview.