Working with SOCA and the Dutch National Crime Squad the gang members were tracked down and arrested from addresses across the Netherlands in August 2011. The three men, all Dutch nationals, were convicted and sentenced following a trial in Rotterdam.
The £1 million Dutch owned luxury yacht the Louise was targeted by Border Force as it was transported to Southampton aboard a cargo ship from the British Virgin Islands.
A gang of drug smugglers have today been jailed for a total of 20 years in the Netherlands after Border Force officers foiled their multi-million pound cocaine smuggling plot.
Border Force officers uncovered cocaine worth £300 million hidden inside a pleasure cruiser at Southampton docks last June. Weighing in at 1,000 tonnes, the haul was one of the UK’s largest cocaine seizures.
Two men have appeared in court charged with attempting to import 400 kilos of cocaine into the country
The haul was seized by officers patrolling off the coast of the Isle of Wight at around 2pm on Sunday 10 June,
The yacht, which had come from the Caribbean, was escorted into Portsmouth port where cutter crew members searched it and found 400 kilos of cocaine. The drugs could have had a potential value of approximately £20 million when cut and sold on the street.
A stash of cocaine worth £3.3 million has been discovered by customs officers in Portsmouth. The drugs were found o board a container vessel which arrived from Santa Marta in Columbia at the end of April.
The haul was hidden below the deck, and was found as the crew off-loaded containers of bananas and pineapples bound for the UK market.
