samp­son nan­ton

British and Span­ish po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing why 1.5 tonnes of co­caine, worth close to $1 bil­lion, left Ch­aguara­mas ear­li­er this month aboard a yacht head­ed for Spain. The yacht was traced across the At­lantic Ocean by satel­lite af­ter it left Trinidad un­til Span­ish Po­lice in­ter­cept­ed it on Mon­day. The drug haul showed sim­i­lar signs to one of the biggest drug cas­es in Ire­land two years ago, which al­so had strong links to T&T. The La Fli­buste yacht, a UK-flagged ves­sel, was moored at Ch­aguara­mas ear­li­er this month be­fore leav­ing with the car­go of 1.5 tonnes of co­caine hid­den in a false roof of two of the cab­ins.

The co­caine is worth a stag­ger­ing 83 mil­lion pounds ster­ling, which at to­day's ex­change rate amounts to TT$830 mil­lion. As it left Ch­aguara­mas it was traced by satel­lite and tailed by British in­tel­li­gence Of­fi­cers. On Mon­day, of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit, of the Span­ish Na­tion­al Po­lice, raid­ed the ves­sel some 120 miles of Cadiz, Por­tu­gal, and trans­port­ed it to Spain. Three men, a Spaniard and two French­men, are be­ing ques­tioned about from whom in T&T they col­lect­ed the drugs and how they man­aged to make it out of the coun­try un­de­tect­ed. Span­ish po­lice are say­ing fur­ther ar­rests may fol­low soon.

The op­er­a­tion, which was car­ried out with the co-op­er­a­tion of British po­lice, be­gan ear­ly this month when po­lice be­came aware of the yacht moored in Port-of-Spain, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued by the Span­ish po­lice. Span­ish po­lice say they were in­formed the yacht had cruised off Trinidad just un­der a month ago and was head­ing for a Span­ish ma­ri­na. It is not clear whether lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cers played any part in the tip-off. In­tel­li­gence agen­cies in Spain and Eng­land are prob­ing deep­er be­cause of the sim­i­lar­i­ty be­tween this bust and one in 2008, in which the ex­act amount of co­caine was al­so found on a yacht that orig­i­nat­ed from Trinidad. That yacht, Dances with Waves, al­so was tracked from Trinidad across the At­lantic by a US spy satel­lite.

It de­vel­oped en­gine trou­ble off the coast of Ire­land be­fore be­ing in­ter­cept­ed. Three men who were ar­rest­ed and tried in that mat­ter were said to have trav­elled to T&T, via Spain and Venezuela, and bought the ves­sel In T&T. In 2002 a British court was told sev­er­al politi­cians from Trinidad were said to have had a close al­liance with a British mil­lion­aire-drug-push­er, who was at the time in hid­ing from British au­thor­i­ties. Those re­ports were car­ried in the lo­cal me­dia, iden­ti­fy­ing a num­ber of places in Ch­aguara­mas, said to be re­spon­si­ble for the out­fit­ting and load­ing of co­caine on ves­sels for over­seas de­liv­ery. The court had heard co­caine was mov­ing from Latin Amer­i­ca, through Trinidad, to small sea­ports in south­ern Eng­land. A yacht, known as the Sea Mist, was in­ter­dict­ed in Ire­land and 599 ki­los of co­caine were dis­cov­ered by Irish cus­toms.

The cap­tain of that ves­sel, John Ewart, who was sub­se­quent­ly sen­tenced to 17 years im­pris­on­ment for il­lic­it drug-traf­fick­ing, re­port­ed­ly told the in­ter­na­tion­al press the Sea Mist was out­fit­ted and loaded in Ch­aguara­mas. The court al­so heard that in con­junc­tion with the Sea Mist a se­ries of yachts left their Ch­aguara­mas an­chor­ages laden with co­caine and even hero­in for Eng­land and ports in Eu­rope. Two oth­er ves­sels al­so were giv­en sim­i­lar treat­ment at Ch­aguara­mas. They are the yacht The Aquar­ius, with 226.6 ki­los of co­caine for de­liv­ery to An­tigua in 1994, and The Ob­ses­sion, with over 200 ki­los of co­caine des­tined for Britain in 1996. Lo­cal in­tel­li­gence au­thor­i­ties are said to be close­ly work­ing with their in­ter­na­tion­al coun­ter­parts on Mon­day's bust.