Two Britons jailed for trying to smuggle 拢2m of cocaine on a cruise ship from the Caribbean
Geraldo Luis Jhonson Garcias, 31, and Vianelis Fermin-Pena, 22, were arrested in Portugal last year and sentenced last week.
Thursday 17 September 2020 15:25, UK
Two British people have been jailed for trying to smuggle 拢2m of cocaine into the UK on a cruise ship.
Geraldo Luis Jhonson Garcias, 31, and Vianelis Fermin-Pena, 22, both from , were among 13 people convicted of trying to get the drugs into Britain on a cruise ship from the Caribbean.
The MSC Opera docked in Funchal, Madeira, in March 2019, where police uncovered their operation, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
Sixteen kilograms of the Class A drug, believed to have a street value of £2m, was found sewn into the insides of bags and concealed in bowls that were found split between a van and a hotel room the smugglers were staying in.
Their plan was to fly the drugs back to the UK and other countries in mainland Europe, the crime agency said.
In a joint operation, NCA officers and Portuguese police arrested four of the gang after they got off the MSC Opera, which led them to nine others.
On 10 September, a court in Funchal, Portugal, sentenced the 13 members of the drugs gang to a total of 74 years in jail.
Jhonson Garcias, believed to be one of the ringleaders of the plot, was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Dutch national Esteban Antonio Mercedes Espinal, 54, who was living in south London, was also given eight years.
Fermin-Pena was given a sentence of six years in prison, while 22-year-old Colombian national Stephany Garcia Escallon, who had been also been living in south London, got a four year suspended sentence.
NCA operations manager Allan Round said: "We believe the end destination for a good proportion of these drugs would have been the UK, but through our close working with our partners in Portugal we were able to stop this crime group in their tracks.
"They might have thought that by using a more unusual routing for their drugs they would make things difficult for us.
"But this international operation demonstrates that the NCA has the ability to tackle drug trafficking at every step along the route, in source countries, in transit countries, at the UK border and on our own streets."