A Roehampton man has been jailed for seven and a half years for running a £1.5 million cocaine operation from his bedroom. The drugs arrived by car, packed in one-kilo blocks, at a handover point 100 metres from his front door.
Marc Evans, 52, of Burke Close, was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court yesterday alongside his courier, Lithuanian national Gvidas Smirnovas, 26, who received 11 years. A third man, known only as “Zico,” directed the operation and collected the cash. He has not been caught. “Whoever Zico is,” the prosecutor told the court, “he’s long gone.”
Caught on the street
Police watched the handover happen. On 15 July 2025, officers conducting surveillance in Arabella Drive saw Smirnovas park a black Hyundai, lift out a heavy blue and yellow bag, hand it to Evans, and return to the car. They stopped him within seconds. Eight kilograms of cocaine were in the vehicle.
Officers were at Evans’s door within minutes. In a suitcase in his bedroom: eight more kilograms, packed in one-kilo blocks. Five bore the stamp MR001, matching the blocks just seized from the car outside. The blue and yellow bag was on top of the suitcase, folded.
Also found: scales and knives coated in white powder, and lottery tickets. Evans had been using them to wrap smaller amounts for street-level dealing.
The value of the operation
A kilo block sells for £25,000 to £32,000 wholesale. Cut and sold on the street, it can generate up to £100,000. Across all 16 blocks recovered in the operation, the wholesale value was between £304,000 and £416,000. The street value: between £1.3 million and £1.6 million.
Password is goose
Smirnovas handed police the PINs for all three of his drug-connected phones. His Waze navigation app showed he had made a delivery earlier the same day in the UB7 area (the postcode immediately north of Heathrow Airport) involving 15 kilograms.
Evans operated under the name “Fred,” taking orders from Zico. The messages showed drop instructions for SE1 and SE16, cash discussed in tens of thousands, and “paper” as the code word for money. One message read: “password is goose.”
Judge Brown found Evans a trusted figure within the group, given responsibility for both drugs and cash. “Both of you,” she told the defendants, “were playing vital roles.”
The sentences
Both men pleaded guilty. Evans did so at his first crown court appearance and received the maximum 25% reduction, cutting a 10-year sentence to seven-and-a-half years. Smirnovas pleaded to one count four weeks before a trial date and to the second count only after that trial date had passed; he received lower credit and was jailed for 11 years.
Both have been held on remand since their arrest almost a year ago. Prisoners serving determinate sentences are released after serving half their term. With remand time deducted, Evans is likely to be released in around three years; Smirnovas in around five.
The judge told both men: “Cocaine is extremely dangerous and addictive. It ruins lives. Drug dealing damages society. It damages local communities.”
Evans had 55 prior offences, including burglary and prison sentences. But his last conviction was 25 years ago, and both the Crown and the judge were clear it played no part in this sentencing; he was treated as a man of good character. His counsel told the court he had become involved partly because of significant debts. His partner Kylie Killgallon and friends were in court.
Smirnovas told the court he had been “utterly stupid,” had “messed up his life here and back home,” and wished to return to Lithuania.
The Angel
Evans was a regular at The Angel on Roehampton High Street, the pub raided three months after his arrest by 29 officers with a helicopter, dogs, and a battering ram. The raid found nothing.
Former landlady Sally Cox described Evans as pleasant and quiet. His social worker and employer gave similarly positive character references to the court. That image sits alongside the fact that he was storing and cutting 8kg of cocaine in his bedroom while his partner, son and young grandson were at home. The police applied to have The Angel shut down, a decision rejected by Wandsworth Council’s licensing committee despite the support of local councillors. It may have its licence suspended for three months, during which time the owners have promised a £300,000 renovation.
The Evans and Smirnovas convictions are part of a wider operation targeting drug supply across south west London, with arrests in Roehampton, Putney and Fulham. A third suspect, arrested in Fulham, is yet to face trial. In April, West Putney police seized cannabis and £2,200 in cash in an arrest at Innes Gardens, a separate case but part of the same pattern of drug supply activity the area has seen.
