DUBLIN: Four people have been jailed for a total of 31 years in connection with an international plot to smuggle Columbian cocaine worth a “colossal and “mind-boggling” €225m off the Irish coast.
Dawne Powell, 56, James Hill, 31, David Webster, 44, and Philip McElhone, 29, were sentenced at Leeds Crown Court this afternoon after one tonne of the class A drug was seized from a yacht off the coast of Cork in September last year.
The four are the final members of a criminal gang to be jailed for 73 years in total for their parts in the operation.
The Makayabella yacht was seized by the Irish Navy on September 23.
Authorities discovered 1,025 2.2lb (1kg) blocks of high-purity cocaine contained in 41 packages, with a street value of around €225m.
A jury of five men and seven women found Hill, from Ilkley, West Yorkshire, guilty of conspiracy to import cocaine after a five-day trial.
Powell, from Guiseley, West Yorkshire, was convicted of money laundering but cleared of a charge of conspiracy to import cocaine.
Webster, from Otley, West Yorkshire, and McElhone, from Halton Moor, Leeds, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine at an earlier hearing.
Sentencing Hill, Judge James Spencer QC said: “This was a serious conspiracy. It involved a colossal amount of cash, or the prospect of it, because the street value of the quantity of cocaine which was planned to be imported was over £160 million. And the quantities of illegal profit therefore were mind-boggling.”
Powell, who bought and insured the Makayabella, bought flights to the Caribbean for her husband Stephen and his father John, bought equipment for the yacht and paid for another boat used in the plot, was sentenced to three years in jail for the money laundering offence.
Hill was jailed for six years after being convicted of the conspiracy charge and Webster and McElhone were jailed for 11 years each.
Judge Spencer told Powell: “I’m quite satisfied that you knew what (Stephen Powell) was about, I’m quite satisfied you knew what was involved. Notwithstanding that knowledge, or your suspicion of it, you made that money available.”
The judge said Powell kept control of the money for her “habitual gambler” husband and made it available to him.
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