Drug smugglers jailed over £40m cocaine plot
NCATwelve members of an organised crime group have been sentenced for their role in a plot which involved 500kg of cocaine, with an estimated value of £40m, dropped at sea.
Police caught the group bringing 16 bales of cocaine ashore on the Sussex coast after recovering the drugs from the sea off the Isle of Wight in August 2024.
Ringleaders Daniel Jamieson, 41, and Sam Brown, 33, were respectively sentenced to 22 years and 16 years and six months at Portsmouth Crown Court for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said, if they had succeeded, the group would have generated "massive profits".
The NCA said Jamieson masqueraded as a legitimate businessman and, using a false name, bought a maritime business so he could get hold of the Amma Sigga, a rigid hulled inflatable boat, to recover the drugs.
It is believed the £40m consignment of Class A drugs was dropped about 40 nautical miles south of the Needles, to the west of the Isle of Wight, by an accomplice crew aboard a container ship.
The drugs were in waterproof bundles, each fitted with a GPS tracker.
NCAIn the early hours of 17 August, oil rig worker David Paterson, 49, of Viking Way, Peterhead, sailed out to international waters from Haslar Marina in Portsmouth.
He failed to collect the 500kg consignment when the container ship sailed past him while he was taking directions via WhatsApp from accomplice Lewis Watts, 37, who was ashore.
Adil Nolan, 40, of Maureen Walk, Fazakerley, Liverpool and Carl Powner, 62, of Park Road, Stoke-on-Trent, succeeded in retrieving the haul after setting out from Eastbourne Harbour the next day.
On 19 August 2024 NCA officers were waiting for the crime group when they brought drugs ashore at onto Medmerry Beach near Selsey, West Sussex.
NCAHarry Kennedy, 38, became involved in the plot on 18 August when his friend Brown asked him to help move the cocaine once it was ashore.
Powner, 62, of Park Road, Stoke-on-Trent, also recruited drivers and bought equipment.
He managed to escape arrest and fled abroad. But after an NCA investigation to trace him, he was arrested in Romania in May and extradited to the UK.
Watts was Jamieson's right-hand man and "instrumental to the conspiracy", the NCA said.
He took charge of a prepaid credit card that was set up to fund the conspiracy and sourced locations for the boat to land.
Five members of the landing party on Medmerry Beach - Charlotte Blenman, Roy Harmer, Neil Pinchbeck, 43, Thomas Stewart, 40 and Ricky Platt, 49 - all admitted assisting an organised crime group.
Following a trial, Jamieson, Watts and Paterson were found guilty of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine
Brown, Kennedy, Powner and Nolan had admitted the same charge.
NCA senior investigating officer Jules Harriman said: Had their smuggling attempt worked, these toxic drugs would have brought misery and violence to many communities around the country.
"The crime group responsible for supplying these offenders has lost their drugs and massive profits that can no longer be ploughed back into further offending."
NCADaniel Jamieson - Heath Road, Ramsden Heath, Essex - 22 years imprisonment for conspiracy to import drugs.
Sam Brown - No fixed address - 16 years and 6 months imprisonment conspiracy to import drugs
Harry Kennedy - College Street North, Liverpool - 9 years imprisonment for conspiracy to import drugs
Lewis Watts - Whitechurch Road, Romford - 14 years imprisonment for conspiracy to import drugs
David Paterson, of Viking Way, Peterhead, near Aberdeen - conspiracy to import drugs - 14 years imprisonment
Carl Powner of Park Road, Stoke-on-Trent - 13 years imprisonment for conspiracy prohibition importation of drugs
Adil Nolan, of Maureen Walk, Fazakerley, Liverpool - conspiracy to import drugs - 11 years and 3 months imprisonment
Roy Harmer, of Chine Road, Bournemouth - 20 months imprisonment for assisting an organised crime group
Neil Pinchbeck, of Pearce Road, Poole - 20 months imprisonment for assisting an organised crime group
Thomas Stewart, of Carpenter Close, Peterborough - 20 months imprisonment for assisting an organised crime group
Ricky Platt, of Westby Road, Boscombe, Dorset - 20 months imprisonment for assisting an organised crime group
Charlotte Blenman, of Shelley Road East, Boscombe, Bournemouth, for 20 months imprisonment suspended for 24 months assisting an organised crime group.