Four
people have been jailed for a total of 31 years in connection with an
international plot to smuggle cocaine worth a “colossal and
“mind-boggling” £164m into the UK.
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 Ireland 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 23
September.
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Authorities
discovered 1,025 1kg blocks of high-purity cocaine contained in 41
packages, with a street value of around £164m. 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 £160m. 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.
The trial heard that Stephen Powell bought the Makayabella for £100,000
but the yacht was paid for in four instalments from a bank account in
the name of his wife. She also paid for insurance for the yacht and
bought a satellite phone.
Powell paid for flights to St Lucia for
her husband and his father to collect the boat, which later brought the
cocaine across the Atlantic from Venezuela.
The second boat, the Sea Breeze, was
bought by Stephen Powell but the cash payment of £18,350 was made by his
wife. The boat was due to be used to meet the Makayabella out at sea to
transfer the drugs.
Powell told the court she did not know
her husband — who was jailed for 16 years last year after he pleaded
guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine — was involved in the
drug-smuggling plot and thought he wanted the Makayabella to sell on for
profit.
She said she believed the Sea Breeze was to be used for fishing trips.
The defendant said she thought the money
she was given to pay for the Sea Breeze was from her husband’s poker
winnings and the money used to buy the Makayabella was from the sale of
another boat.
Hill was accused of accompanying Stephen
Powell on a trip to Wales, where the Sea Breeze was harboured, and
making a call to the Makayabella on the day the drugs were seized.
John Powell, 70, from Silsden, West
Yorkshire, Benjamin Mellor, 35, from Bradford, and Thomas Britteon, 28,
from Grimsby, north-east Lincolnshire, admitted drug trafficking and
importation in Ireland earlier this year. Powell was sentenced to 10
years in jail, while Mellor and Britteon were jailed for eight years
each.
David Norris, a branch commander at the
National Crime Agency, said: “We have successfully dismantled an
organised crime group intent on flooding the north of England with
illegal drugs.
“This was a colossal seizure and I’ve no
doubt that, had it not been stopped, the cocaine on board the
Makayabella would have ended up on our streets.”
Tarryn McCaffrey, a specialist crown
prosecutor, said: “When the Makayabella was seized by the authorities,
it contained over a tonne of cocaine being transported from Venezuela.
Dawne Powell and James Hill may not have sailed either of the boats used
to import the drugs but the scheme could not have been run without
their involvement.
“The street value of these drugs would
have been £164m had this massive shipment reached the intended
destination. It is vital this type of organised crime continues to be
disrupted and offenders brought to justice.”
