A Liverpool man has been jailed for 20 months for smuggling £43,800 of drugs money off the island.

Nathan Andrew Robinson, 34, of Speke, admitted an offence of removing criminal property from the island.

The Court of General Gaol Delivery heard that he had travelled to the island on the Steam Packet ferry from Liverpool on Sunday July 16 2023, together with his girlfriend, who was driving them in her blue Ford Fiesta.

It was the third trip the couple had made to the Isle of Man and on this occasion they had booked into the Palace Hotel in Douglas for a two-nights’ stay.

On the evening of July 17, CCTV footage showed the defendant meeting a suspected member of an organised crime gang in the hotel car park.

Robinson and his girlfriend returned to Liverpool on the ferry the following day where they were detained on arrival by Merseyside law enforcement.

Officers found a quantity of cash hidden under the rear passenger seats of the Fiesta.

There were nine individually wrapped packages containing a total of £43,800.

Prosecutor James Robinson said the Crown’s case was that the defendant had knowingly facilitated the removal of the cash which represented the proceeds generated by an organised crime group from the sale of drugs in the island.

In a basis of plea, the defendant accepted he had removed criminal property from the island and said he alone was responsible. He said he felt guilty and remorseful for dragging his girlfriend into this.

Defence advocate Jim Travers said his client wanted to ‘put the whole sorry episode behind him’.

Sentencing Robinson to 20 months’ custody, Deemster Graham Cook said the significant planning involved and the links to organised crime were aggravating factors.