Drugs

[Ehecatl]

Men jailed for smuggling cocaine worth £60 million into the UK on a yacht

 

[mainsail1]

Lovely looking yacht. A Swan??

 

[Old Harry]

I bet they wished that hadnt done that

 

[Tradewinds]

Lovely looking yacht. A Swan??

Beneteau 50 I think

 

[awol]

It will be for sale soon.

 

[mainsail1]

Beneteau 50 I think

Thanks, I should have seen the Logo on the bow.

 

[ryanroberts]

In December 2018, Kilgour had bought the vessel, paying €50,000 for it from a seller in Mallorca, Spain

That's quite the bargain.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

It will be for sale soon.

And probably totally trashed internally. Customs "Rummaging" can be pretty destructive.

 

[Offshore57]

I can imagine "Rummaging" equipment can include air-saws and suchlike....

 

[Stemar]

If they were going to make 10% profit on the deal, £50k is just a minor business expense. I wonder how HMRC found out about them; that sort of haul isn't the result of a random stop.

 

[Fiddlesticks]

Eighteen months before the capture, Kilgour had effectively been rumbled when he performed a dummy run, in December 2017, which ended in embarrassment.

Faced with difficult sailing conditions, he needed rescuing and was towed into Fishguard harbour for repairs, an incident which vitally alerted suspicious authorities.

Drug police board yacht and arrest traffickers with cocaine haul

 

[scruff]

There's a dock in Horta with a fine collection of yachts which have been impounded for drug running. Amongst them, Martella the 80ft maxi which took part in the 1989 Whitbread.

It seemed a shame to see an ocean greyhound sat rotting away with old tyres for fenders...

 

[newtothis]

There's a dock in Horta with a fine collection of yachts which have been impounded for drug running. Amongst them, Martella the 80ft maxi which took part in the 1989 Whitbread.

It seemed a shame to see an ocean greyhound sat rotting away with old tyres for fenders...

Do the local authorities not put these up for sale? Most government departments will take any opportunity to raise a little revenue here or there.

 

[scruff]

Do the local authorities not put these up for sale? Most government departments will take any opportunity to raise a little revenue here or there.

I would imagine so at some point, but when talking to someone who worked at the marina they just shrugged... The boats were unfendered / had old tyres for fenders and some clearly caught at sea - the sails dropped and crudely tied to the boom etc whilst rotting in the UV...

I suspect they would very quickly get beyond economic repair...

 

[Mark-1]

Eighteen months before the capture, Kilgour had effectively been rumbled when he performed a dummy run, in December 2017, which ended in embarrassment.

That story might be true, but it sounds a bit like a story concocted to protect the real source of information to me.

 

[michael_w]

Perhaps they were the decoy for a couple of containers arriving at Felixstowe?

 

[Biggles Wader]

Got too greedy and failed to cross the right palms with silver. Smuggling on this scale requires a few blind eyes to be turned, some of them quite high up the food chain.

 

[ross84]

Got too greedy and failed to cross the right palms with silver. Smuggling on this scale requires a few blind eyes to be turned, some of them quite high up the food chain.

I reckon the other yacht got through just fine >