Two Liverpool Men Among 12 Jailed Over £40m Cocaine Plot
A gang of 12 has been jailed for more than 100 years in total for a plan to bring £40m of cocaine into the country by sea. Two of those sentenced are Liverpool men.
How the plot worked
The drugs went into the sea from a container ship, put there by an accomplice crew. The 500kg of cocaine was packed in waterproof bundles, each with a GPS tracker. The bundles were believed to have gone into the water several days earlier, around 40 nautical miles south of the Needles, west of the Isle of Wight.
The aim was to recover the bales and take them ashore. From there the gang planned to pass the drugs to other criminal groups across the UK.
The failed first attempt
The first try came on August 17, 2024. Oil rig worker David Paterson, 49, sailed from Haslar Marina in Portsmouth into international waters. Lewis Watts, 37, was on shore sending him WhatsApp instructions.
It went wrong. The container ship passed Paterson, and Watts urged him to chase it and flash his lights. The ship carried on. The trackers had also failed to transmit a signal, so Paterson could not find the drugs. He came back several hours later with nothing.
Landing at Medmerry Beach
NCA officers were waiting when, on August 19, 2024, members of the group brought 16 bales onto Medmerry Beach near Selsey, West Sussex. The cocaine had a purity of around 85%.
Sam Brown, 33, lived on Wykeham Street in Kirkdale during the conspiracy. He is originally from Essex and admitted conspiracy to smuggle cocaine, and he played a key role in recruiting others. Harry Kennedy, 38, lived on the same street. Kennedy joined the plot on August 18, 2024. Brown wanted his help moving the drugs once they were landed. Adil Nolan, 40, of Fazakerley, helped recover the drugs from the sea.
The sentences
Daniel Jamieson, 41, was one of two ringleaders and got the longest term, 22 years. He presented himself as an honest businessman, buying a maritime firm under a false name. That gave him the Amma Sigga, a rigid-hulled inflatable used to recover the drugs. Brown got 16 years and six months, Kennedy nine years, and Nolan 11 years and three months.
Carl Powner, 62, recruited drivers and bought equipment. At first he evaded capture and left the country, but investigators found him and he was arrested in Romania in May this year, then sent back to face court. He was given 13 years. Paterson and Watts each received 14 years.
Watts, of Tilbury in Essex, was Jamieson's right-hand man. He held a prepaid credit card set up to pay for the plot and looked for places where the boat could land.
Five more people were convicted of assisting an organised crime group. Charlotte Blenman, 34, received a 20-month sentence suspended for two years. Roy Harmer, Neil Pinchbeck, Thomas Stewart and Ricky Platt were each jailed for 20 months.
Jules Harriman, the NCA's senior investigating officer, put it this way: "The main players from this conspiracy are facing very long periods behind bars." He added that the group that supplied the offenders had lost its drugs and the profits that could have funded more crime.
Source: National Crime Agency