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UK police find cocaine worth $9.3 million stashed in a shipment of Kim Kardashian brand underwear

LONDON (AP) — A British court sentenced a truck driver to prison for smuggling 7 million pounds ($9.4 million) worth of cocaine in a shipment of underwear and clothing from Skims, Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand, authorities said Monday.

The National Crime Agency said Jakub Jan Konkel, 40, was driving a truck carrying 28 pallets of Skims clothing from the Netherlands when he was stopped by border officials at a port in Essex in September.

The agency said Konkel had stopped on the way to collect 90 kilograms (198 pounds) of cocaine, and that the truck had been specially adapted so that he could hide the drugs, wrapped in 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) packages, in a compartment of the truck’s back doors.

The agency said the shipment of clothing was legitimate and neither the exporter nor importer were connected to the smuggled load.

Konkel said he had agreed to transport the drugs for a payment of 4,500 euros ($5,243), according to the agency.

He was sentenced to 13½ years in prison for drug smuggling at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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