Two jailed over £60m yacht plot to smuggle in cocaine

TWO MEN have been jailed after they were caught smuggling cocaine with a street value of at least £60m into the UK on a yacht.

Gary Swift, 53, and Scott Kilgour, 41, of Liverpool, had been transporting 751 blocks of highpurity cocaine weighing one kilo each when their vessel was intercepted off the Welsh coast.

Yesterday a judge told the pair they “took a massive gamble and lost” for what the National Crime Agency described as one of the biggest drugs busts in recent years.

The men had attempted to import the drugs from Suriname in South America into the UK when their sailing yacht, Sy Atrevido, was intercepted by Border Force cutter HMC Protector about half a mile (0.8km) off the Pembrokeshire coast in the early hours of August 27 last year.

The vessel was towed into Fishguard Harbour where Swift came clean to officers, telling them, “It’s obvious I’m in a lot of trouble” before admitting there were 751 wrapped blocks of cocaine hidden in secret compartments on board.

Following the men’s arrest Craig Naylor, deputy director of investigations for the NCA, said he believed the drugs bust was their second biggest in recent history.

Prosecutor Paul Mitchell said: “The concentrations of the cocaine was between 69 and 83 per cent purity, which is three or four times the usual street concentration.”

Swift and Kilgour both pleaded guilty to importing Class A drugs.

Swift was sentenced to 19 years and six months in jail, while Kilgour was sentenced to 13 years and six months.

Following the sentence the NCA said three men aged 23, 31, 47, and a woman aged 30 who were arrested in Liverpool and Loughborough in connection with the seizure remain on bail.