Pensioner Jailed Over £200m Drug Smuggling Plot
John Powell, 70, is one of three men to admit trafficking after the Irish navy found a luxury yacht drifting in the Atlantic.
16:00, Friday 24 April 2015
The Makayabella was intercepted by an Irish naval vessel in the Atlantic
A pensioner has been jailed for 10 years for his part in a plot to smuggle £200m of cocaine across the Atlantic on a luxury yacht.
John Powell, 70, of Silsden, West Yorkshire, skippered the luxury yacht Makayabella which was found in poor condition 200 miles (320km) off the southwest coast of Ireland
The vessel was intercepted in the Atlantic Ocean last September and found to have 41 bales of the drug inside, weighing nearly a tonne.
Powell was one of three Britons given jail terms in Ireland after being arrested on board.
Benjamin Mellor, 35, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, and Thomas Britteon, 28, of Grimsby, north east Lincolnshire, were sentenced to eight years each for their roles.
The drugs weighed nearly a ton
The three are understood to have pleaded guilty at the Circuit Criminal Court in Cork to drug trafficking.
The seizure of the drugs, which originated in Venezuela, was one of the biggest at sea in Europe last year.
The operation to track the Makayabella as it crossed the Atlantic from the Caribbean involved the UK's National Crime Agency, French, Irish and Venezuelan authorities, the UK's National Maritime Information Centre and the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (MAOC-N) in Lisbon.
Powell's son Stephen, 48, was jailed last December for his part in the plot.
Stephen Powell received 16 years in prison after handing himself in to police in the UK in September.
Investigators also seized a 25ft (7.6m) motor boat called Sea Breeze in Pwllheli, North Wales.
NCA investigators found that Stephen Powell, from Guisley, West Yorkshire, had bought the Makayabella and the Sea Breeze.
They said the boat, skippered by Stephen Powell, was supposed to meet up with the Makayabella in the Atlantic.
The gang's plan came unstuck when the Sea Breeze ran out of fuel on the journey between North Wales and Ireland and began drifting.
It was rescued by the RNLI and towed to Rosslare before being towed to Pwllheli.
Stephen Powell pleaded guilty to conspiring to import a class A drug, and at Leeds Crown Court on Friday 5 December and was sentenced shortly after.
David Norris, NCA branch commander, said in December: "This single seizure roughly equates to 4% of the total amount of cocaine we estimate is imported into the UK every year."
"I have no doubt that (Stephen) Powell played a crucial role in this plot and would have been responsible for bringing this shipment ashore, where the cocaine would have ended up in the hands of drug dealers around the north of England."
