Yahoo News Five men jailed for 120 years after failed attempt to smuggle cocaine worth £112m
Five men have been jailed for a total of 120 years after trying to import cocaine with a street value of over £100 million into the UK hidden in a yacht.
The 1.4 tonnes of the Class A drug worth £112 million was concealed in the SY Nomad, which was intercepted by the authorities off the Cornish coast in August last year.
UK nationals Nigel Clark, 64, and Dean Waters, 59, Estonian Richard Must, 49, Dutchman Raymond Dijkstra, 27, and Latvian Voldermars Gailis, 21, were all jailed at Bristol Crown Court for their roles in the conspiracy.
Clark and Waters were each jailed for 28 years, Must was locked up for 30 years, Dijkstra was given an 18-year prison sentence and Gailis sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment.
Passing sentence, Judge Martin Picton said the conspiracy was “an exercise in international drug smuggling of the highest order”.
He said: “The only reason that the principal offenders in this case – Nigel Clark, Dean Waters and Richard Must – expended so much time, energy and money in seeking to bring about this audacious plan was in the hope of securing simply enormous profits.
“But for the intervention of the National Crime Agency and the Border Force, it would have flooded the drug market in this country, contributing by so doing to the appalling social harm that the prevalence of cheap Class A drugs represents.
“This is criminality of truly staggering proportions.”
The judge ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the cocaine while a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing will take place later.
Clark, of no fixed address; Waters, of Estepona, Spain; and Dijkstra, of Holland, were convicted by a jury of conspiring to import cocaine and conspiring to conceal cocaine within a ship following a five-week trial.
Must, of Estonia, and Gailis, of Latvia, had earlier pleaded guilty to the same charges.
The court heard the 60ft yacht had left Suriname, just south of Venezuela, at the beginning of August heading for the UK when it was intercepted.
The vessel was escorted into Newlyn Harbour in Cornwall and the three men on board – skipper Must and crew Gailis and Dijkstra – were arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking offences.
The authorities then searched the boat and within an hour they discovered more than 1,400 kilo blocks of cocaine hidden inside locked storage containers on the vessel.
The estimated wholesale of this amount of cocaine was £44,896,000, with an approximate street value of £112 million.
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Clark and Waters were arrested later that day by National Crime Agency officers who had been observing their activity over a period of two days.
The authorities believe Waters, who had purchased a rigid inflatable boat, and Clark planned to meet the yacht at sea and transfer the drugs.
Ty Surgeon, senior investigating officer for the NCA, said: “This was an audacious plan to bring cocaine worth £112 million to the UK by boat, and it was only thwarted through law enforcement and partner agencies working together, sharing intelligence and conducting operational activity to stop it.”
