Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS brand has ‘no connection’ to cocaine bust

Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand, SKIMS, is making it clear it has nothing to do with a cocaine smuggling operation in England.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 24: Kim Kardashian attends the NikeSKIMS “Bodies At Work” launch celebration at Nike House of Innovation on September 24, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Manny Carabel/Getty Images)

“SKIMS is aware of the recent news involving a shipment with our products. We want to be absolutely clear: SKIMS had no knowledge whatsoever about this criminal activity. We had no connection to the smuggling operation, the driver, or the truck,” the brand told TMZ in a statement.

How was the connection even suggested?

Well, according to police, last September Jakub Jan Konkel transported a trailer truck carrying SKIMS clothing from The Netherlands to England. Border Force officers searched the trailer after it arrived at the Port of Harwich and found 90 hidden packages of cocaine, worth an estimated $9.4 million. The packages were hidden near the rear trailer doors of the truck.

Authorities were clear then that SKIMS had absolutely nothing to do with the smuggling operation.

WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 25: Reality television star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian attends a roundtable discussion on criminal justice reform hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on April 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. The meeting included four of the sixteen people who had been convicted of non-violent drug offenses in the past and received clemency from President Joe Biden earlier this week. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“The load was entirely legitimate and neither the exporter nor importer were connected to the smuggled load, however the truck had been specially adapted and a hide constructed in the skin of the rear trailer doors,” the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said in a statement.

Konkel initially denied knowing about the drugs, but later confessed he agreed to smuggle them for $5,300 and pleaded guilty in court.

On Monday, Konkel was sentenced to 13 years and 6 months in prison for trafficking cocaine in Chelmsford Crown Court in Essex, England.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – FEBRUARY 16: Kim Kardashian attends SNL50: The Anniversary Special on February 16, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

“Organised crime groups use corrupt drivers like Konkel to move Class A drugs often hidden on entirely legitimate loads such as this,” NCA operations manager Paul Orchard said in a statement. “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 NCA works with partners at home and abroad to protect the public from the threat of Class A drugs, which are at the epicentre of huge amounts of crime and suffering in UK communities.”

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