CUSTOMS agents posed as a fishing crew on a boat which brought a huge cargo of Moroccan cannabis into Scotland, a jury heard yesterday.
Peterhead skipper Baird MacKenzie, 41, told how he had sailed the boat Cirrus to Spain and then on to Morocco to pick up the drugs.
For eight days, five men now accused of drugs smuggling were unaware the undercover excisemen were carrying out crewmen's duties on the boat.
The five customs agents have been allowed to keep their identities secret during the trial at the High Court in Kilmarnock and can be known only by their first names.
Mr McKenzie said: ''George was in charge of the boat and Gary was the engineer, Billy was cooking and Brian and Graeme were sharing the watches with me.''
The six men took the 80ft steel boat to the Spanish port of Cadiz. Mr MacKenzie said he went with Brian and George to a bar where he met Mr John Smith, 41, and Mr Ian Hood, 26.
They were told to go to a point off the coast of Morocco, where they were to broadcast the code word, ''Barcelona'', the signal for another ship to bring out the bales of cannabis.
After the meeting, Mr Hood joined Mr MacKenzie and the undercover agents on the ship, and one of the customs men, Gary, was dropped off.
Mr MacKenzie said that, when they gave their signal, it was not answered but, the following night, a small wooden boat came out to meet them.
He told Advocate-depute James Campbell QC: ''There were five people on board the other vessel. They started passing hessian sacks over to us. As soon as the packages were passed over, we untied the ropes and they were away.
When Mr Campbell asked what was done with the hessian packages, which were 18'' square and weighed 50 to 60 pounds, Mr MacKenzie replied: ''We took off the hessian and underneath there was thick polythene sheeting wrapped round them that was put on with binding tape.''
He said it took himself, Mr Hood, and Graeme about nine or 10 hours to unwrap all the parcels and put the cannabis in the 100 fish boxes while the other customs men, George, Brian, and Billy, were sailing the boat back to Scotland.
They arrived at Troon harbour eight days after they had picked up the drugs.
Earlier, he told how another of the accused, Mr Thomas Porter, 42, had threatened to kill him over a mix-up about the colour of the boat.
He claimed Mr Porter threatened him during a meeting in Torquay and explained the colour was important: ''because the people in Morocco were expecting a black boat and if we went out with a red boat they wouldn't hand the stuff over''.
Mr MacKenzie added that Mr Smith told him he had put #200,000 of his own money into the operation.
Mr Hood, Mr Porter, Mr Smith, and two other men, Mr Forbes Cowan, 33, and Mr Robert McElwee, 25, all deny being concerned in smuggling cannabis at various places throughout the UK as well as at Cadiz, off the coast of Morroco, and on board Cirrus between Morroco and Troon between September and November last year.
The five, whose addresses are given as Barlinnie Prison, also deny being concerned in the supply of cannabis.
Mr Porter and champion strongman Cowan deny a further charge of being concerned in smuggling cannabis at Peterhead and Kilwinning between August 1995 and February last year.
The trial, before Lord Dawson, continues.
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