SKIMS found itself in the news for the wrong reason when a big stash of drugs was found in the shipment of the underwear brand owned by reality star and businesswoman, Kim Kardashian.
A truck containing Kardashian’s brand was used to conceal 90kg of cocaine during an attempted smuggling operation in England.
After the bust, Kardashian‘s company put out a statement distancing themselves from the controversy, reports The New York Times.
According to the UK’s National Crime Agency, the Polish driver of the truck, Jakub Jan Konkel, was stopped in Essex in September 2025 while arriving on a ferry from the Netherlands. After 28 pallets of SKIMS products were x-rayed, authorities said the load was “entirely legitimate and neither the exporter nor importer were connected to the smuggled load.”
However, the vehicle was specially adapted to conceal the skin of the rear trailer door, which led to “90 packages each containing 1kg of cocaine, with a street value of over £7.2m (R160,363,440).”
In an interview with authorities, Konkel did not disclose a 16-minute stop recorded by his vehicle’s tachograph – a device inside commercial vehicles that records speed and distance. A scan of the vehicle exposed the hidden compartment containing the cocaine, according to The New York Times.
Konkel confessed after his initial denials of knowing about the drugs, which he is said to have smuggled for a fee of €4,500 (R86,750).
The 40-year-old driver was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison on Monday for his crimes.