A pair who tried to smuggle £100m of cocaine on a fishing boat have been found guilty.
The two men from Swansea, 46-year-old Jon Williams, of St Thomas, and 31-year-old Patrick Godfrey, of Port Tennant, were convicted after trial at Truro Crown Court on Wednesday.
Two further men, 45-year-old Michael Kelly, of Portway in Manchester, and 27-year-old Jake Marchant, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty before trial.
The members of the crime group were found with more than a tonne of the Class A drug on their boat, the Lily Lola, off the coast of Cornwall.
When the boat was intercepted by Border Force officers shortly after 2pm on 13 September, Williams was the boat’s captain, Marchant was next to him, Kelly in the accommodation area and Godfrey was asleep in a deck chair.
The Lily Lola, which Williams had purchased for around £140,000 two months earlier, was taken into Plymouth Royal Dockyard where the substances were seized, with tests showing they were high purity cocaine.
Internet history on Godfrey’s phone showed a search for “how long does it take a ship to leave peru to uk”.
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A tracker was found in the drugs haul and the National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation established it was linked to a user in South America.
When interviewed, Williams, Godfrey and Marchant all made no comment, while Kelly claimed he was on a fishing trip.
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NCA branch commander Derek Evans said the NCA and Border Force had “prevented a huge haul of cocaine from hitting the streets of the UK and wider Europe”.
“The NCA is working around the clock with partners here and overseas to erode the criminal networks benefiting from the destructive drugs trade,” he added.
The four men will be sentenced on 8 May.
