A MAN who was caught red-handed with £2.7million of cocaine in his car will not have to give up any of his assets.

Ryan Ludlow, 26, is serving nine years in jail for picking up around 30kgs of cocaine last summer.

Ludlow maintained at his original hearing that he agreed to courier the holdalls to pay off a debt he owed to travellers at Oak Lane, Crays Hill, after he began seeing a girl from the site.

Since then an application was made at Basildon Crown Court to seize his assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Ludlow, of Clayburn Circle, Basildon, was stopped by police in a Ford Mondeo in Howards Way, Harlow, last August.

A search of the car revealed two holdalls full of cocaine.

Matthew Gowen, prosecuting, said landscape gardener Ludlow had deposits, totalling £30,000 over the past six years, in his bank account.

But Recorder John Akast said Ludlow was a “reluctant” courier and added there was no evidence to suggest Ludlow had financially benefited from the August drug run.

David Williams, defending, said Ludlow had no previous convictions and was made to carry out the run. He said: “There is not one speck of evidence that suggests this man has engaged in any criminality until this incident."

Ludlow was told to collect a package which he did not know at the time would be drugs, the court heard.

He was sentenced to 11 years in February after admitting possession of cocaine with intent to supply.

He later won a cut in his sentence by two years at the Court of Appeal.

Ray O’Donovan, 28, of Wilsner, Pitsea, who was in the car when Ludlow was stopped and admitted possessing nearly 130grams of cocaine with intent to supply was jailed for four years.

An application to confiscate his assets will be lodged at Basildon Crown Court.