The UK Border Force has warned that South American drug cartels are dropping cocaine into the seas around the UK, where it is then picked up by smaller vessels and transported to shore. This method of smuggling is becoming increasingly covert, posing a persistent and serious threat to the UK. Consequently, border security measures are being continuously enhanced.
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03-23, 2025According to officials, drugs worth tens of millions of pounds are being wrapped in floating devices equipped with trackers, allowing gang members in the UK to monitor the drugs' location in real time. Last week, a court heard a case in which four British men were arrested for receiving a ton of cocaine, worth £100 million, in the waters near the Isles of Scilly, and they face lengthy prison sentences. This highlights the scale of the operation and the potential consequences for those involved.
To intercept these packages, the UK Border Force has deployed patrol boats and trained sniffer dogs. The BBC was granted rare access to the department for an interview, during which a sniffer dog named "Lightning" successfully detected a shipment of cocaine hidden in bananas on a cargo ship arriving from South America. This shipment, worth over £50 million, was intercepted near the coast of Dover in January of this year, demonstrating the effectiveness of these detection methods.
Charlie Eastwood, Maritime Lead at the Border Force, told the BBC that the drugs are divided into packages weighing approximately 30 kilograms, equipped with inflatable life jackets, and then dropped into the sea. This strategy, known as "air sea drop off" (ASDO), has led to the seizure of tons of cocaine in recent years. South American drug cartels use so-called "mother ships" to transport the drugs and maintain contact with criminals in the UK via satellite phones. When the ships enter UK waters, the packages are dropped into the sea to be found and received by smaller "daughter ships."
Mr. Eastwood emphasized that the problem is "very serious," but "we have the ability to identify, track, locate, seize, and ultimately prosecute and imprison those involved." Derek Evans of the National Crime Agency (NCA) warned those in the fishing industry: "If you are approached by people from organized crime groups, please tell the police. If you are thinking of getting into this industry within a criminal framework, think again." This collaboration is crucial in combating these criminal activities.
The court heard that last September, four men on a vessel named "Lilly Lola" sailed to waters near the Isles of Scilly, acting on instructions from a South American gang. There, they retrieved a ton of cocaine dumped into the sea by a larger vessel, but they were intercepted by National Crime Agency officers before they could transport it back to shore. The captain, Jon Williams (46), and Patrick Godfrey (31) were hired for their nautical skills by Michael Kelly (45) and Jack Marchant (27). They will return to court for sentencing on May 8th, facing significant penalties for their involvement.
A series of other high-profile incidents have occurred in the past two years, including: cocaine packages washing up on beaches on the Isle of Wight in October 2023; bags of drugs being discovered in Durdle Door in Dorset and Goring in West Sussex in 2023; and an inflatable boat being intercepted near Suffolk in June 2024, carrying drugs retrieved from a mother ship, with two men jumping overboard in an unsuccessful attempt to escape Border Force officers. These incidents highlight the widespread nature of the problem.
Professor Adam Winstock, a psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist, stated that the purity and price of cocaine have been "immune to inflation" over the past five years. Therefore, he believes that "if [smugglers] lose 20% of their cargo to seizures by the authorities, it doesn't matter to them" because the profit margins on the drugs are so high. Despite record seizures in 2024, cocaine-related deaths in the UK have reached a 30-year high. According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, there were 1,118 deaths in 2023, ten times the number in 2011, indicating a worrying trend.
