Eleven Liverpool-based roadmen found themselves on the wrong side of the law after a high-stakes, high-seas drug heist turned into a total clusterf**k. The plan? Recover £40 million worth of cocaine dumped from a container ship in the English Channel. The reality? GPS trackers failed, and when they finally worked, the feds were waiting on shore 😡.
Sam Brown, 33, and Daniel Jamieson, 41, were the brains behind this mad ting. They recruited a crew to pull off the job, but when the trackers went kaput, it was all hands on deck trying to salvage the op. Lewis Watts, 37, managed the logistics from land, sending frantic messages like: "Big ship has passed you, flash lights." David Paterson, 49, piloted the first failed mission, returning empty-handed.
Adil Nolan, 40, skippered the second attempt on August 19. This time, they nabbed the drugs but were cornered by NCA officers at Medmerry Beach in West Sussex. Harry Kennedy, 38, Charlotte Blenman, 34, Roy Harmer, 46, Neil Pinchbeck, 43, Thomas Stewart, 40, and Ricky Platt, 49, formed the landing party, all admitting to assisting the crime group.
Jules Harriman from the NCA summed it up: "This was a large seizure of cocaine and represents a serious loss for the crime group. Their profits can no longer be ploughed back into further offending and we've prevented these toxic drugs from reaching UK streets where they poison people's lives."