MORE than 50,000 ecstacy tablets and 100 kilograms of cannabis were found when police pulled over a lorry on the A30 at Whiddon Down, Exeter Crown Court heard this week.
The lorry was meant to have been heading for the Body Shop distribution centre in Sussex to deliver a batch of cosmetics and beauty products, the court was told.
But when it was stopped and searched at Whiddon Down on May 1, a police sniffer dog got excited by a pallet of boxes inside.
The drugs ? 51,514 ecstasy tablets and 105 kilograms of cannabis resin ? were discovered and the lorry driver, Leunis Rentier of Holland, was arrested. Rentier, 47, denies two counts of drug smuggling and two alternative charges of possessing drugs with intent to supply.
He claims he had no idea there were drugs in the lorry and was receiving instructions on what to do with the content by telephone.
Prosecutor Fiona Elder said Dutch haulage company Welsi was organising the transportation of the cosmetics from Germany to Britain. The goods were driven from Germany to the company?s warehouse where they were then loaded onto the lorry of a sub contractor Nopa Transport. The Sania articulated lorry arrived at Harwich on April 30.
After the lorry was stopped at Whiddon Down at 5pm, Rentier denied all knowledge of the drugs. He said he knew he had to take cosmetics to Littlehampton but his instructions changed when he arrived in England.
He told police he was using a scrap of paper containing telephone numbers found in the cab of his lorry as contacts and was told to go to Tavistock.
The scrap of paper was never found, said the prosecutor, and Rentier claimed he tore it up in frustration at the instructions being changed.
The trial continues.