Asylum seeker from Angola jailed after smuggling £2 million of cocaine into Britain

Teresa Matos is an African who came to Britain having fled poverty and civil war in her home country of Angola. She was given both British citizenship and an enviable job with the Royal Navy and decided to show her gratitude to the British people for their kindness and generosity by becoming the first Royal Navy sailor to be convicted for trying to use a warship to smuggle drugs into the country. She tried to bring over 8.5kg of 100% cocaine – £2 million worth – into Britain aboard HMS Manchester. The astonishing ambition of Matos’s crime was laid bare in court when she was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. Three London-based accomplices were also sentenced: her Angolan boyfriend Raul Beia, 39 – who had also been granted asylum to live in Britain – was jailed for 13 years; Dean Langley, 20, for 11 years; and Abdul Banda, 34, for ten and a half years.