Cocaine cruise codgers
Arrested OAPs ‘offered pair a free trip if they took bags too’
AN elderly British husband and wife arrested on suspicion of smuggling £2million of cocaine allegedly offered another couple a free holiday if they carried extra suitcases, it was claimed yesterday.
Roger and Sue Clarke allegedly told British friends they could visit the West Indies all expenses paid if they agreed to bring back designer baggage.
Mr Clarke, 72, and his wife, 70, are in custody in Portugal after being arrested on their Caribbean cruise ship the Marco Polo when it docked in Lisbon last week.
They are accused of smuggling 20lb of cocaine hidden in false bottoms in their suitcases.
Fellow passengers said Mr Clarke had gone ashore at St Lucia and returned with four new cases.
He is said to have boasted of paying £160 for them compared with the £1,500 they would have cost him in Harrods.
Portuguese police claim the cases had hidden metal compartments containing the drugs, evenly distributed among the four pieces of baggage found in the couple’s £6,000 cabin.
The Clarkes were regular cruise passengers, travelling up to six times a year. Previously of Cheshire, they had been living near Alicante on the Costa Blanca for the past three years.
Yesterday, another British expat couple in Spain were furious as they claimed the Clarkes had offered them a free holiday in the Caribbean in exchange for carrying some bags.
Paul and Pauline Craven, from Bolton, Lancashire, said they had turned down the ‘dodgy’ offer.
Mrs Craven, 60, said: ‘I feel like we’re two very lucky people – that could so easily have been us. They asked us last year to accompany them on a Caribbean cruise.
‘I started a part-time job cleaning their home in Spain, near where we live, and they very quickly befriended us.
‘We were flattered when they offered to treat us to a transatlantic cruise – it was a dream of a lifetime. Roger told us he imported pineapples from the Caribbean to the UK in containers and said he wanted me on the ship to keep his wife company. They offered to pay for everything.’
She added: ‘It seemed too good to be true at first, and it was, because then they started saying we should buy some designer suitcases in the Caribbean because they could pick them up there cheap and we could sell them for two or three times more once we got to the UK.
‘I didn’t think anything of it initially but then they said we would need to put our clothes inside the suitcases we were supposed to buy. I couldn’t understand how we would be able to sell the cases for a profit when they were essentially second-hand because they would have been used.
‘We turned them down after I checked out their story about the designer suitcases being sold in Harrods and discovered Harrods didn’t stock them. I got asked to stop cleaning their house soon after we said we didn’t want to go on the cruise with them.’
Mr Craven, 64, said: ‘They openly admitted to having criminal records so we knew they were both dodgy. They told us they had served time in prison after being caught trying to smuggle cigarettes in the back of a lorry.’
Since his arrest on December 4, Mr Clarke has been held in a cell of the Policia Judiciaria, Portugal’s serious crime investigation agency. His wife is believed to be at Lisbon’s only women’s jail, Prison Tires, a crumbling 100year-old building with a tin roof.
Inmates there are kept up to four in a cell and can be expected to work making carpets for export under the supervision of local nuns.
The couple’s cruise ship docked in Portugal after sailing from the Bahamas.
Portuguese police entered their cabin with a search warrant before allegedly discovering the cocaine. The Clarkes have not been charged with any offence but remain ‘arguidos’ – or formal suspects – under Portuguese law.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘Our staff are in contact with the Portuguese authorities following the arrest of a British man and woman in Lisbon.’
‘We knew they were dodgy’