NEWS ROUND-UP MOVERS & SHAKERS


 APT has recruited Becky Baumbach as business development manager to support agents


in the southwest, covering counties from Cornwall to Worcester as well as South Wales. The escorted touring and river cruise specialist says the appointment ‘completes’ its new-look sales team. Baumbach joins from Bristol airport.


 Constant Travel’s homeworking business Personal Holiday Advisors has appointed ex-Thomas Cook cluster


manager Shaun Bashford as general manager. The Leeds- based business, which set up its homeworking arm last year, aims to expand from 14 homeworkers to 50 within two years. Bashford replaces Michelle Morley, who left after the firm’s recent relocation from Wakefield to Leeds.


 Attraction World head of commercial partnerships Justin Mahoney is to leave the travel industry to


become chief executive of kids daytime holiday camp specialist Barracudas. Mahoney has spent 26 years in travel, the last three of them at Attraction World.


 Travel Weekly has appointed Benjamin Coren as senior reporter, with a focus on hotels, theme parks and agent


news. He joins with almost four years’ experience reporting for Selling Travel, The Business Travel Magazine and Onboard Hospitality.


Agent jailed after police seize cocaine worth £600k


Samantha Mayling


samantha.mayling@ travelweekly.co.uk


A travel agent has been jailed for eight years after being found with £600,000 worth of cocaine at his agency, which police said was being used as a “drugs operation base”.


Neil Wheatley, 46, of Tuscan


Drive, Lordswood, Kent, was a director at First & Business Class Travel in Rochester, Kent. Kent Police detectives seized


about £60,000 cash, and cocaine with an estimated street value of more than £600,000. Maidstone Crown Court was


told that Wheatley was pulled over while driving by police in Chatham on December 14, 2018. Officers searched his car and


took him into custody after finding a ball of cocaine, cash and three mobile phones. They later found a secret compartment, where the passenger airbag should have been, in which there was a large quantity of cocaine and a bundle of banknotes. Three other properties linked to Wheatley were also searched.


Abta urges agents to go tropical for its Big Charity Day in May


Abta’s charity is asking agents and operators to ‘Go Troppo for LifeLine’ and join its annual Big Charity Day on May 3. This year’s fundraising day has


a tropical theme, and staff are encouraged to wear a tropical shirt to work and donate £1 to LifeLine. Trudie Clements, Abta LifeLine


10travelweekly.co.uk14 March 2019


director, said: “If all Abta members’ staff get involved and support us, we can raise a great deal.” The charity, which was set up in 1988, supports travel industry staff, and has helped more than


£40k


Cash found behind an air vent in the walls of the agency


One was the office at the agency where he worked in High Street, Rochester, where they found “a significant uantity of cash and drugs hidden inside a wall behind an air vent”, police said. More than £40,000 had been


hidden in the walls of his office. Evidence was also seized from


Wheatley’s home address in Lordswood, and a second property in Mierscourt Road, Rainham, where three 1kg blocks of cocaine were found hidden in the loft. Wheatley was charged with possession of criminal property and being concerned in the supply of class A drugs. He pleaded guilty to both offences before his


sentencing on March 7. The Mirror reported that Wheatley was a cocaine addict. Prosecutor Tom Dunn said the


travel agency was a legitimate business, set up by Wheatley and two partners, but used by him as “a drugs operation base”.


800 families, with grants totalling more than £1 million. Clements suggested tropical


bake sales, hula-hooping competitions and cocktail-making classes as among the ways agents could get involved on May 3. She urged those taking part to


share their plans and pictures on social media, using the tags @ABTAlifeline and #BigCharityDay. Last year’s Big Charity Day


raised about £4,000 but Clements said the industry has the potential to raise much more.


IMPRISONED: Kent-based travel agent Neil Wheatley is starting an eight-year jail term after using his Rochester agency as a ‘drugs operation base’


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