Navy
Two Men Jailed After Biggest Ever Royal Navy Drugs Bust
Two Turkish men have been convicted of smuggling £500 million worth of cocaine after they were caught by the Royal Navy in Britain's biggest ever drugs bust.
Mumin Sahin and Emin Ozmen were caught with the drugs by HMS Somerset, working with the National Crime Agency and the UK Border Force and assisted by the cutter Valiant last year.
They have each been jailed for at least 20 years.
The Border force had been tipped-off by the French customs body DNRED.
Three tonnes of the Class A drug were discovered hidden inside the MV Hamal after it was stopped by the Royal Navy about 100 miles off the coast of Aberdeen.
The vessel was taken to Aberdeen where a search by Border Force officers with 'specialist deep rummage skills' found the huge haul of the drug.
They drilled through a steel plate into a secret compartment to find 128 bales of cocaine weighing 3.2 tonnes, with an estimated street value of £512 million.
The entry to the space was found under a wardrobe in one of the crew's quarters, with the opening cemented over.
Judge Lord Kinclaven told the men the quantity of drugs was "not only significant but massive" and drugs trafficking had a "devastating impact" on people and communities, he said:
"You were involved in a most serious operation of commercial scale involving the transportation of cocaine by ship, in an operation which crossed international and indeed intercontinental boundaries."
He told the ship's captain Sahin, he was "not at the top of the drugs tree" but had played an important role in the offence, while second captain Ozmen's role was "to some extent a lesser one".
National Crime Agency senior investigating officer John McGowan said:
"Today's sentencing is the culmination of a truly international investigation into a seizure that was unprecedented in its scale for Scotland, the UK and Europe.”
"Although the final destination for this haul of drugs is likely to have been mainland Europe there is no doubt in my mind that some of it would have ended up on the streets of the UK, fuelling further criminality.”
Sahin, 47, was sentenced to 22 years while Ozmen, 51, was given a 20-year term at the High Court in Glasgow.
Charges against four other men were found to be not proven.
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