A gang who smuggled £42m worth of drugs into Britain in an inflatable boat have been jailed after they were found with 500kg of cocaine in a van outside a hotel.
Daniel Livingstone, 25, was arrested in May this year with 524kg of cocaine in his van outside a hotel in Lelly, East Yorkshire, where he was staying with drug smugglers Mark Moran, 23, and Colombian national Didier Tordecilla Reyes, 40.
Moran and Reyes had sailed a rigid hulled inflatable boat from a slipway in Hessle, East Yorkshire, having moved the drugs from a larger ship a few hours away, before they returned to Easington Beach, around 18 miles away.
Livingston was waiting for the pair and had been seen shining a torch out to sea and talking on his mobile phone before they approached.
National Crime Agency (NCA) officers saw Moran and Reyes leave the boat after unloading some bags in the hire van waiting nearby.
Moran had been in Norwich earlier in the day, where he drove the van and boat to Grimsby to meet Livingston and Reyes.
The trio then drove onto Hessle, where Livingstone stopped to fill two large jerry cans with fuel.
They were later found at the hotel by officers.
During a hearing at Hull Crown Court, Livingstone admitted to ‘conspiring with others to import a controlled drug’. Tordecilla Reyes admitted the same offence.
Livingstone, of Campbeltown, Argyll and Bute, was jailed for seven years and nine months. Reyes will be sentenced at a later date.
Moran, of Ardrishaig, Argyll and Bute, was found guilty of conspiracy to import drugs following an eight-day long trial at Hull Crown Court. He was sentenced to 15 years behind bars.
A fourth man, from Argyll and Bute, was cleared by the jury.
NCA Senior Investigating Officer Alan French said: ‘There’s no doubt these drugs would have been sold into communities around the UK, but working with our partners including Humberside Police and Border Force, we have disrupted this crime group’s offending and made a huge dent in any profits they were due to make.
‘We are determined to do all we can to tackle the class A drugs threat activity, and protect the public from the horrific damage it causes our society.’