A TAXI driver from Renfrew has been cleared of involvement in a £200,000 drugs deal.

Anwar Shafi, 59, and fellow cabbie Kamran Hussain, 41, were arrested after a cross-border police surveillance operation.

Officers followed Mr Shafi from Renfrewshire to Birmingham, where a number of boxes were put in his car.

He then drove to Carlisle, where the boxes were transferred to Mr Hussain's vehicle.

Officers recovered a haul of cannabis after stopping the vehicles on the M74 motorway in Lanarkshire.

The green herbal material was in vacuum bags packed into the boxes.

However, both men walked free from Hamilton Sheriff Court this week after a jury returned not proven verdicts.

They had been accused of being concerned in the supply of cannabis on the M74, near Bothwell, and elsewhere in Scotland and England in October 2020.

The indictment stated that the men were acting with another individual who is now deceased.

Mr Shafi, of Campsie Drive, Renfrew, and Mr Hussain, of Larch Road, Glasgow, insisted they didn't know what was in the boxes.

The court heard that the third man, who has since died, asked Mr Shafi to take him to Birmingham to see relatives.

Mr Hussain said he believed the boxes transferred to his car on the return journey contained household goods.

Police stopped the vehicles in Lanarkshire in the early hours of the morning.

Jurors were shown footage of bags containing herbal material being taken from a car by officers.

Detective Constable Marc Shevlin, of a specialist drugs unit, said almost 21 kilos of cannabis was seized.

Each of the sealed vacuum bags weighed around one kilo.

DC Shevlin estimated the wholesale value of the haul was £83,600 but added that, if sold in small £20 deals, it could be worth £209,000.