Southampton man jailed for international cocaine smuggling plot
A gang planned to pick up packages dropped from South American container ships
Last updated 10th Jun 2022
A Southampton man has been jailed for a plot to smuggle cocaine dropped from South American container ships.
A gang was planning to collect packages of drugs jettisoned into the English Channel and bring them to the UK.
31-year-old Thomas Snell, of no fixed address, was sentenced to eight years after pleading guilty at Southampton Crown Court.
Snell’s accomplices Edward Duggin, 33, of Buntingford Hertfordshire and Justine Romaraog, 22, of Redhill, Surrey, also pleaded guilty at a previous hearing.
Border Force officials boarded a motor cruiser that the defendants were travelling on in the English Channel off the coast of Falmouth, Cornwall, last October.
Officers uncovered that they had been carrying out a ‘practice-run’ by conducting planned interceptions at sea with South American ships.
Traces of cocaine were found on board the vessel inside voids, indicating the spaces had been used for the storage of cocaine in the past.
The court heard that the vessel had also travelled in to the channel where it conducted unusual manoeuvres at sea, near a large container ship from South America.
Detective Sergeant Dan Hope of the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: "Thomas Snell has received a significant prison sentence and is the final defendant to be sentenced for his involvement in a plot to import extremely large amounts of cocaine across the English Channel and into the shores of the UK.
"This prevented a Class A drug, which has extremely harmful consequences to society, from reaching our streets."