LONDON: Two men have been found guilty after a sting operation at sea that netted Britain’s biggest ever haul of class drugs.
Mumin Sahin, 47, and Emin Ozmen, 51, were convicted of smuggling and supply charges by a majority verdict at the High Court in Glasgow.
The drugs, estimated to be worth £500m, were found inside a ship some 100 miles off the coast of Aberdeen in April 2015. Co-accused Kayacan Dalgakiran, 64, Mustafa Guven, 48, Umit Colakel, 39, and Ibrahim Dag, 48, were acquitted of smuggling and supply charges by majority verdict.
The Turkish crew of the tug, MV Hammal, were caught with 3.2 tonnes of cocaine hidden inside ballast tanks. They were intercepted following an operation supported by the Royal Navy warship, HMS Somerset, which was seconded from a naval exercise nearby.
The smugglers had sailed from Istanbul to Guyana to pick up their cargo of drugs and were sailing back towards mainland Europe when they were hunted down by the Border Force and the National Crime Agency (NCA), following a tip-off by French authorities.
Dramatic footage released by the NCA shows its officers, along with counterparts from the Border Force, chasing the MV Hammal in inflatable ‘RIBS’. The Turkish crew slows down upon instructions, allowing officers to clamber on deck.
The vessel was towed into Aberdeen harbour where NCA “rummage teams” searched it over several days. Investigators discovered the concealed drugs when they spotted a recently welded hatch in the floor of the vessel’s first aid room. When they drilled through it, the tip of the drill-but was white with 70% pure cocaine. Inside the hidden compartment, they found the drugs bound into 129 “bales”.
