LONDON--It is being called the biggest cocaine bust in the history of Barbados, England and Ireland.
The story of a yacht loaded with B$600 million worth of Colombian cocaine which left Barbados some time in June/July 2007 for Ireland, ended Thursday when two men were sentenced at the Blackfairs Crown Court in Central London to lengthy jail terms.
The keen eyes of the Irish Police and efforts by Barbados' Coast Guard to keep international drug traffickers out of Barbadian waters, failed when the haul of Colombian cocaine was able to travel undetected from Barbados to the coast of Ireland.
It however, took a combination of ineptitude by a crook and bad weather to scuttle the plot, the court was told when the details of the sophisticated plot were revealed this week.
Thursday, Michael Daly, 49, a former Scotland Yard detective in London was slapped with a lengthy prison term for plotting to use Barbados to smuggle 3,300 pounds of pure Colombian cocaine in a yacht almost three years ago.
Efforts Thursday night to get a comment from local law enforcement authorities proved futile.
The yacht Lucky Day, sailed into Barbadian waters and out again sometime in June 2007, headed for Ireland.
Thursday, English Judge, Henry Blacksell, told the former detective "you betrayed your colleagues" in Scotland Yard, before sentencing him to 22 years in a British prison.
That sentence would run concurrently with an eight year term the ex-detective is already serving in connection with another plot to import cocaine and amphetamines from France into England.
A co-conspirator in the Barbados-Ireland scheme, Alan Wells, a former fire-fighter, was sentenced to 15 years.
The story of the cocaine shipment began in earnest in England and Ireland, stretched to Florida, switched to Venezuela, crossed over to Barbados and ended up on the rocks off the Irish coast.
The plan was upended only when an inept plotter put diesel in an inflatable dinghy's tank instead of gasoline, and the craft stalled in rough weather off the coast of Ireland, just a few hundred yards away from shore.
Without that error, the cocaine haul might not have been found and the traffickers wouldn't have been caught.
According to the evidence presented in Blackfairs Crown Court Daly was the mastermind of the plot. The judge and jury heard that Daly used his knowledge of police investigative techniques to plan the haul.
"(Daly) clearly abused the knowledge and skills he gained as a police officer for criminal gain," said Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Grant Johnson.
When the dinghy stalled, Daly allegedly tried to rescue the drugs but rough weather and dark skies made the task impossible and he had to abandon ship and drugs and swim ashore.
The drugs were later found by Irish police floating in the water. -Daily Nation
