The captain and first officer of an ocean going tug have been discovered responsible of drug trafficking in what authorities have described as the most important seizure of sophistication A medication ever within the historical past of the United Kingdom.

The cocaine was discovered hidden on board the Tanzanian-flagged MV Hamal in April 2015.

The vessel was intercepted by Royal Navy and Border Control property within the North Sea about 100 miles off the coast of Aberdeenshire following a tip from the UK’s National Crime Agency working with French customs investigators. The MV Hamal was later escorted to the Port of Aberdeen the place an exhaustive search turned up 128 bales of uncut cocaine stashed inside a hidden compartment subsequent to one of many tug’s ballast tanks.

The complete weight of the cocaine taken off the MV Hamal turned out to be in extra of three.2 tonnes, price an estimated complete avenue worth of the medicine to be about £512 million.

Hamal’s 9 crew members, all Turkish nationals, had been detained and charged with drug associated offenses.

Investigators later decided that the ship doubtless loaded the medicine at sea about 5 days after leaving the Georgetown, Guyana off South America’s North Atlantic Coast in March 2015, and had been destined to be offloaded in North Sea, north of the Dutch/German border.

Of the 9 crew members detained, fees in opposition to 4 had been discovered not confirmed and three others had been acquitted, nevertheless a 12 week trial on the High Court in Glasgow discovered the captain, Mumin Sahin, and first officer, Emin Ozmen, responsible of two counts of drug trafficking. Sentencing has been set for August 12.

“This seizure was unprecedented in scale, the biggest ever class A haul in the UK, and we believe the biggest ever maritime seizure of cocaine in Europe,” commented NCA senior investigating officer John McGowan. “While we suspect that the end destination for this load would have initially been mainland Europe, there is no doubt given the size of the seizure that a good percentage would have ended up being sold in the UK and fueling further criminality.”

“Our investigation has been truly international and we have relied on support of law enforcement colleagues across the globe, including France, Turkey, Guyana and Tanzania,” McGowan.