Four Dutch men plotted to smuggle more than £16 million of cocaine into Scotland by using a James Bond-style underwater vehicle, a court has heard.
Henri Van Doesburg, 68, Arnold Van Milt, 49, Roderick Van Doesburg, 23, and Darryl-Jay Van Doesburg, 22, plotted to remove 108kg of the drug from a ship in Scotland using a Seabob vessel and other scuba diving equipment, Leeds Crown Court heard.
The men went on trial yesterday charged with conspiracy to import illegal drugs into the UK.
Paul Mitchell, prosecuting, told the jury that the men were arrested after customs officers found more than 50 packages of extremely high-purity cocaine in the rudder space of the Cape Maria vessel at Hunterston, near Largs, North Ayrshire, on May 9.
He said the "enormous" amount of the drug had a potential street value of around £16.2 million.
Mr Mitchell said three of the men were arrested in Seamill the same evening. Henri Van Doesburg was arrested in Aalsmeer, in the Netherlands, the next day.
The prosecutor said some had scuba diving experience and planned to access the drugs in the ship from the outside.
When police searched their car and an inflatable speedboat, they found dry suits, other scuba diving equipment and the Seabob.
Describing the underwater vehicle to the jury of nine women and three men, Mr Mitchell said: "You might have seen them used by James Bond and James Bond's adversaries."
He added: "It's the kind of thing you use if you need to travel underwater at high speed."
Mr Mitchell said that a week and a half before the drugs were seized, Van Milt and Henri Van Doesburg travelled to Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, where they were later joined by Henri Van Doesburg's son Roderick Van Doesburg and grandson Darryl-Jay Van Doesburg. Mr Mitchell said: "The men were attracting significant attention in the town."The defendants deny the charge and the trial continues.
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