UK Police Bust Fishing Boat With 400 Kilos of Cocaine off Kent

 

The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) has arrested four men after finding about 400 kilos of cocaine aboard their boat off the coast of Kent, England. 

UK Border Force officers intercepted the fishing vessel on Sunday morning and discovered the drugs. The three men on board the boat, aged 64, 45 and 25, were arrested for allegedly importing narcotics. They were transferred to police custody for questioning by the NCA, and a fourth man allegedly connected to the smuggling attempt was arrested in East London.

"This amount of cocaine will represent a significant loss for the organized crime group that attempted to import it into the UK," said NCA Operations Manager Jules Harriman. "With our partners at Border Force and the Joint Maritime Security Centre (JMSC), we have successfully removed this harmful drug consignment from the criminal marketplace."

Most of the UK's major cocaine busts happen at container terminals, where customs officials occasionally find multi-tonne consignments disguised as shipments of fruit or consumer goods. Small-craft shipments are occasionally intercepted on cross-Channel routes, like a bust off Sussex in 2021, which netted three convictions. 

According to the NCA, an Albanian organized crime group - the Mafia Shqiptare - is the dominant player in the UK's illicit cocaine trade, organizing the complex logistics and money-laundering needed to bring vast quantities of the drug across borders. Unlike other importers, the Albanians are said to be vertically integrated: they have supply contacts at the source in South America, allowing them to import at wholesale prices, then pass the savings on to the consumer through street-level sales. They are believed to have a close working relationship with the ‘Ndrangheta, the Italian mafia group that dominates the Euro-area cocaine trade.