Frank Lampard responds after his face found in £38million drugs bust in Australia

Frank Lampard was left speechless after an old photo of him was used on labels for drugs before £38million worth of deadly “ice meth” was seized in Australia.

An image of the Chelsea icon was used on bricks of drugs that were found in duffel bags in Sydney. The bizarre chosen image is from 2017 and pictures Lampard in a suit as he waved goodbye to the Stamford Bridge fans.

Each individual brick was wrapped in plastic and marked with the image of Lampard, which is believed to be the trademark of the gang supplying the drugs. Investigators has suggested that the drug producer may be a Chelsea fan.

Lampard, who has been out of work since his brief managerial stint back at the Blues at the end of the 2022-23 season, was shown a picture of the drugs captured with his face on but was taken aback.

He told The Sun : “Yeah, you probably know my answer on that one. What am I gonna say about that? I’m not aware of it. I don’t even know what to say to you to be honest. I’ve literally no comment on that.”

Australian Federal Police tracked the 95kg shipment of methamphetamine from Los Angeles to Maroubra, in East Sydney. The alleged trafficker Richard Prothero, 37, from South West Sydney’s Liverpool suburb, was arrested at gunpoint in the car park of the surf club, where the drugs were found, on Tuesday.

Armed officers swooped in after watching him collect a key from under a car’s bumper and starting the engine. Prothero was charged with attempting to possess a commercial quantity of border-controlled drugs and made no application for bail when he appeared in court.

Australian Federal Police Det Supt Kristie Cressy said the 60kg of methamphetamine could have been divided up into 600,000 street wraps. "Methamphetamine, like all illicit drugs, causes psychological, financial and social harm to users, their loved ones and the broader community," she said.

"Criminals do not care about the harm they cause. They are motivated by the profits they can make. Across Australia there were 10,100 methamphetamine-related hospitalisations in 2021-2022 – which equates to more than 27 every day on average.

"This has an impact on the health system that can negatively affect the entire community. Investigations like this show the resolve and relentlessness of our investigators in making Australia a hostile environment for organised crime."

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