POLICE are still trying to hunt down the ringleaders of the organised crime gang behind an international cocaine smuggling operation which was dealt a heavy blow with the capture of nine people off the north of Scotland over a year ago.
While the Turkish crew of the tug MV Hamal were found guilty of smuggling cocaine suspected to have come from Guyana and on route to Holland, police forces are still to catch up with the kingpins of the operation.
READ MORE: Two men guilty of smuggling £500 million of cocaine found inside ship
It is understood the crew have not divulged any information to British investigators about the identity of the drugs baron who is suspected to be in Turkey.
Detective Chief Superintendent John McGowan and the story of Operation Screenplay
The operation to intercept the Tanzania-registered tug 100 miles east of Aberdeen on the morning of April 23, last year was the biggest maritime class A drug seizure in Europe.
In one operation, police and customs officers captured 3.8 tonnes of cocaine with a street value of over £500 million - equivalent to the total seized by police forces, the Border Force and National Crime Agency for the whole of the 2014/15 financial year.
READ MORE: Two men guilty of smuggling £500 million of cocaine found inside ship
It came in 29 bales wrapped with an outer layer of brown tape, a middle layer of latex and black bin liner and an inner layer of brown tape.
Several unanswered phone calls were made to the boat after interception.
(Photo: NCA)
Emails obtained written in Turkish recovered contained a numbered code and it is understood they matched figures written on pieces of paper on the vessel.
It was only after the code was cracked by Professor Toby Bailey reader at the School of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, that it was revealed they were the cordinates for the north coast of Holland meeting point.
But email accounts were cleared within a week, and requests to companies for information came to nothing as investigators were told all data was deleted.
(Photo: NCA)
"With a sizeable quantity of cocaine like this, there has to be a serious organised crime group behind it, and law enforcement across Europe will do their best to identify who they are and that work will be ongoing," said Detective Chief Superintendent John McGowan, head of the NCA's border investigation team, the senior investigating officer for Operation Screenplay.
"We have given the Turkish authorities the information we have surrounding these people and they are having a look in their own country.
READ MORE: Two men guilty of smuggling £500 million of cocaine found inside ship
"In terms of identifying the organised crime group, or people behind this, that's the ongoing work of the NCA. We are working with international partners to develop intelligence and evidence we have to identify who is behind this."
The operation was carried out by a combination of NCA and Borders officers supported by the Royal Navy, after a tip off from French customs.
(Photo: NCA)
Two rigid inflatable boats (Ribs) containing eight officers approached the tug, while one stood off for emergency support.
The unarmed officers officers found that the crew, too, were unarmed.
It is believed that was because carrying firearms might draw attention to them if inspected, while the drugs were secreted in a safe and secure place, a special concealment space created in a ballast tank under the floor of a first aid room that had been converted into living quarters for one of the crew.
After the tug was taken to Aberdeen, investigators found the drugs when breaking into a newly-welded plate found within the steel infrastructure in a ballast area at the front of the ship using a domestic hand-drill to find white powder that tested positive for drugs.
READ MORE: Two men guilty of smuggling £500 million of cocaine found inside ship
They then discovered a separate entrance to the tank beneath a medicine cabinet bolted to the wall, in a crewman's quarters.
They broke through a concrete covering to reveal a hatch that accessed the trove of cocaine in an six-foot high, five-foot wide cavity.
(Photo: NCA)
In a tight concealment space, it took investigators a day-and-a-half to remove each of the cocaine bales, which weighed 25 kg each.
The bales of cocaine covered an area of 12ft by 10ft and was four feet high. Samples contained cocaine ranging in purity from 58% to 71%.
"It's a huge quantity. It staggered us," said Det Chief Supt McGowan.
Officers discovered that the vessel, owned by the Kiev Shipping and Trading Corporation, based on the Marshall Islands had left Turkey on February 20, 2015, was in Tenerife on March 8 for a refuel, arrived at Georgetown Guyana on March 21 where it stayed for a number of days, before making its route north towards Holland.
Investigators discovered that the tug's Automatic Identification System (AIS), an automatic tracking system used on ships had been switched off and on during various stages of their journey, suggesting they were trying to remain undetected.
Further investigation found that the vessel, not necessarily with the same crew had historically made similar journeys.
AIS tracking and customs records showed the tug had been to Guyana a handful of times before and that all but one or two of the nine crew had been at sea before working on a number of ships.
Det Chief Supt McGowan said of the operation: "As a senior manager in the NCA I am really proud to have led a team to have identified that much and taken so much out of the supply chain. The harm that amount of drugs can do into our communities of the UK is just immeasurable."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article