Russell King ran a 630kg drug empire from his UK home until police crashed through his gate

This was no back-alley dealer or petty mule — Russell King, 63, was the mastermind of a sprawling ketamine empire, operating from a posh £300,000 home in Barnsley. But on the day of his downfall, police stormed in like a scene from a thriller.

Bodycam footage captured the moment King’s luck ran dry: officers vaulted his fence, tasered him to the ground, and cuffed him, just metres from bin bags bursting with ketamine. Hidden compartments in his motorhome had carried 100kg of the drug across the North Sea from Rotterdam, part of a network so large and organised that investigators said it resembled a multinational business.

The arrest stunned even seasoned officers. “We found him surrounded by bags of ketamine, utterly calm — like it was just another delivery,” one detective said. But it wasn’t just another deal. This time, elite crime squads were waiting.

King had used his motorhome as a decoy, appearing like a retiree on a leisurely European trip. Behind the façade, he concealed four giant bags of ketamine worth a street value of £2 million. But that was only the tip of the iceberg.

In court, prosecutors laid bare the full scale of King’s operation: he had overseen the importation of more than 630kg of ketamine into Britain — enough to flood streets across the country with the Class B drug. The profits were immense. So was the destruction.

“King was not just a courier,” said a spokesperson from the National Crime Agency. “He was a key player in the ketamine trade — one of the biggest we’ve encountered in years. His network spanned borders, but his base of operations was here in the UK.”

A jury at Lewes Crown Court took little time to convict him. The evidence was overwhelming — secret compartments, tracking data, seized communications, and surveillance tying him to every part of the smuggling chain. The sentence? 22 years behind bars.

But questions remain. How did a man with no previous major convictions rise so high in the criminal underworld? And how many other ‘Russell Kings’ are operating unnoticed across quiet English neighbourhoods?

Police described the bust as a major victory in the war against international drug trafficking. Yet they admit: ketamine, known for its powerful hallucinogenic effects, continues to flood UK markets, often ending up in the hands of young people chasing a cheap high.

“It’s not just about catching kingpins,” said one officer. “It’s about shutting down entire supply routes and dismantling the demand.”

King’s Barnsley neighbours expressed shock. “He just seemed like a bloke enjoying retirement,” one local said. “Nice car, nice house — you’d never guess what he was up to.”

His secret life, however, was as calculated as it was profitable. The £2m seizure is believed to be one of the largest ever ketamine hauls linked to a single individual.

Now behind bars, Russell King will spend the next two decades thinking about the empire he built — and lost — all from the comfort of a caravan and a quiet cul-de-sac.