Five men have been jailed after they were caught moving 425 kilograms of cocaine, with a street value of £34 million, into Eastbourne Marina following a National Crime Agency investigation.
The group had been under surveillance for several months. On 8 June this year, as the men were hauling the drugs off the fishing vessel New Horizon, officers moved in and arrested them all.
The Class A drugs had been packed in waterproof bags, fitted with a GPS tracker, and dropped overboard from another vessel in the English Channel. The crew was then to collect them, bring them ashore, and pass them on to other crime groups across the country.
Alan Colquhoun, 49, of Oberon, Alloa, Clackmannanshire, and William Donohoe, 38, of Sycamore Drive, Craigneuk, Airdrie, jointly organised the operation. They directed the others and liaised with the overseas group that had trafficked the cocaine. Both men expected an £80,000 payment for their role. They carried out reconnaissance along the south coast to identify the best landing point, hired a van in Scotland by claiming it was needed to move pub stock, and drove it south to transport the drugs.
They recruited Ian Smith, 50, of New College Close, Eastbourne, East Sussex, the skipper and fisherman of the New Horizon, to sail out and locate the haul. Smith was joined on the boat by Jacob Cronin, 32, of Elgar Way, Eastbourne, East Sussex, and Daniel Ruffell, 36, of Humber Way, Slough, Berkshire. Cronin, a fisherman by trade, helped prepare the vessel before it left. Ruffell acted as lookout; he had owed a significant debt to the importing group and joined the crew in an attempt to clear it. When armed officers boarded the boat, Ruffell hid in a cupboard. Donohoe remained on land and was arrested at a petrol station.
At Hove Crown Court on Friday 23 October, Colquhoun and Donohoe were each sentenced to 16 years in prison. The sentences were reduced from 24 years because of their early guilty pleas. Smith received 12 years, reduced from 18 years for his guilty plea. Ruffell, who has 21 convictions for 43 previous offences, was sentenced to eight years, reduced from 12 years. Cronin was sentenced to six years and eight months, reduced from 10 years for his early guilty plea.
NCA Senior Investigating Officer Carl Barrass said Colquhoun and Donohoe had acted for a crime group with international reach and had been crucial logistics men moving very large amounts of Class A drugs into the UK. He added that the investigation had taken out the five men, who are now toxic to fellow criminals, and had removed nearly half a tonne of cocaine whose profits are lost to the organised crime group. Tackling the Class A drugs threat remains a priority for the NCA, which will continue to work with partners at home and abroad to keep these substances out of communities.
Shilpa Chauhan, of the Serious Economic Organised and International Crime Division at the Crown Prosecution Service, described the case as a highly sophisticated conspiracy to smuggle millions of pounds worth of Class A drugs into the UK. She said importations on this scale cause immense harm to communities, feeding addiction and funding further organised crime. The sentences reflected the serious roles played by each defendant. The CPS worked closely with the National Crime Agency and was pleased to have secured guilty pleas from all defendants.
The search of the vessel was supported by expert National Deep Rummage Team officers from Border Security Command Maritime. The investigation was also assisted by the Maritime, Aviation and Military Intervention Cell, Sussex Police, and Police Scotland.
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