Kim Kardashian's Skims Brand Used as Cover for $9.4M Cocaine Smuggling Operation
A British court has sentenced a Polish truck driver to 13 and a half years in prison for smuggling $9.4 million worth of cocaine hidden inside a legitimate shipment of Kim Kardashian's Skims clothing brand, the UK's National Crime Agency announced Monday.
Jakub Jan Konkel, 40, was driving a truck carrying 28 pallets of Skims merchandise from the Netherlands when he was stopped by UK border officials at a port in Essex last September. According to the agency, he had detoured on the way to collect 90 kilograms (about 198 pounds) of cocaine, wrapped in 1-kilogram packages, which he had hidden in a specially adapted compartment built into the truck's back doors.
A Truck Modified for Smuggling
The NCA said the cocaine was kept entirely separate from the Skims cargo. The hidden compartment had been engineered into the rear of the lorry specifically to conceal kilogram packages of the kind investigators eventually recovered. Officials at the Essex port stopped the truck for inspection, where they found the drugs neatly stacked inside.
The shipment of clothing itself was legitimate. The agency was clear that neither the exporter shipping the Skims merchandise nor the importer receiving it had any connection to the cocaine. Konkel had used a lawful commercial run as cover for the separate drug shipment, a tactic the NCA said organised crime groups have come to favour.
A Confession and a €4,500 Payment
Konkel initially denied knowing anything about the cocaine when officers stopped him. He later confessed during the investigation and told prosecutors he had been paid 4,500 euros, about $5,243, to transport the load. He was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court, the NCA said.
The 13 and a half-year prison term reflects the scale of the smuggling operation. Ninety kilograms of cocaine sits well above the threshold for the most serious category of Class A drug offences under England and Wales sentencing guidelines, where street value at this level routinely yields prison terms in the double digits.
NCA Calls Konkel "An Important Enabler"
In a statement, NCA operations manager Paul Orchard described Konkel as the type of "corrupt driver" that organised crime groups routinely recruit to move Class A drugs hidden inside otherwise lawful freight.
"Organised crime groups use corrupt drivers like Konkel to move Class A drugs often hidden on entirely legitimate loads such as this," Orchard said. "The detection and investigation have removed a significant amount of cocaine whose profits are lost to the crime group behind the smuggling attempt, and with Konkel they've lost an important enabler."
The agency also released photographs on social media showing the cocaine packages alongside the Skims clothing, drawing attention to a case that paired a household brand name with what officials described as a serious organised crime operation.
Skims Caught in the Crossfire
The Skims brand, founded by Kim Kardashian and her business partners in 2019, was not implicated in any wrongdoing. The clothing in the shipment was real merchandise being legally exported from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom, and the brand itself had no involvement in the criminal use of the truck. The shapewear and apparel label has expanded internationally in recent years and routinely ships large volumes of product across the European Union and into Britain.
Cases in which legitimate commercial freight is used as cover for drug smuggling have become a recurring concern for European border agencies. The NCA noted that organised crime networks frequently target high-volume, low-suspicion shipments such as clothing, electronics, and food, because such cargo passes through customs at scale, giving smugglers a chance to blend in with routine commercial traffic.
For Konkel, the calculation cost him at least 13 and a half years.
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