Grandpa-conning crook jailed over sugar-coated drug scam

May 23, 2025 TH Author

A ruthless cyber conman who duped elderly pensioners – including an 80-year-old man – into smuggling deadly class A drugs was this week locked up.

Tonny Iheoma Ezeh, 51, cruelly tricked vulnerable email scam victims into believing they had hit the jackpot and convinced them they had to travel abroad to collect their cash.

The scheming fraudster, who holds passports from Nigeria, Canada, and Jamaica, conned two German pensioners, aged 80 and 67, into unwittingly carrying methamphetamine concealed inside boxes of sweets through Heathrow Airport.

Both elderly men, unaware they were being used as drug mules, were stopped separately by Border Force officers on October 18 and 21 last year. Each was found with around 3 kg of methamphetamine hidden in boxes of Elvan Chocolate Truffles.

Initially charged with smuggling drugs, the two innocent pensioners were cleared after investigators exposed Ezeh’s sick scam.

Ezeh pleaded guilty at Isleworth Crown Court on May 13 and was sentenced yesterday to nine years and three months behind bars.

Operating from Mexico, the Nigerian national coordinated global drug shipments as part of a West African crime network, targeting elderly victims through email finance scams. Victims were tricked into travelling to Mexico, signing fake paperwork, and carrying drug-filled chocolates on the promise that millions of euros or dollars were waiting for them with hosts in Hong Kong.

But their journeys were cut short at Heathrow, Britain’s largest airport, where Border Force officers intervened.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) apprehended Ezeh as he entered the UK on December 23.

NCA operations manager Peter Jones said: “Tonny Ezeh is an extremely callous criminal. He and his crime group singled out and took advantage of elderly, vulnerable victims.

“He didn’t care at all about the trauma the men would experience when stopped, arrested, and remanded in a foreign land.”

Jones added: “If an offer is too good to be true, it very likely is and we urge anyone who is approached and asked to transport goods to think very carefully.

“The NCA and partners at home and abroad continue to fight the threat of class A drugs entering the UK.” ®