Tag Archives: drug-smuggling

Fishing vessel busted with €250m ($304m) worth of drugs first spotted by Irish naval officers weeks ago

Three men were arrested this week when the ‘Odyssey 227’ shipping trawler was seized with 22.1 tonnes of hash on board after the Irish tip-off to authorities in Spain. The ship, which originated in Morocco, was intercepted last Tuesday before the hash was recovered and three men arrested. The capture is one of the biggest ever seizures of cannabis in European waters. photos, >click to read< 09:01

Skipper says cartel loaded drugs for his ill-fated voyage

B.C. skipper John Stirling, who has a long history of international drug smuggling, provided the details of the journey that landed him in a U.S. prison to investigators after his April 2019 arrest. Now he is trying to get the candid statements made to U.S. authorities thrown out of court. And he is also alleging in motions filed in U.S. District Court in Portland that the Americans had no right to arrest him as a Canadian sailing in international waters at the time.,,Stirling’s drug-trade history dates to 1990, In 2001, he was arrested on his boat, the Western Wind, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with 2.5 tonnes of cocaine aboard. American authorities turned him over to the RCMP but he was never charged. >click to read< 10:16

Canada’s cocaine cowboys: How a two-year RCMP sting led all the way to Mexican kingpin El Chapo

It was March 12, 2015, and Stephen Tello was having second thoughts. The following day he was due to meet a man called Joe at a steakhouse in Toronto. Joe was a transportation broker who, for the right price, had told Tello he could smuggle huge amounts of cocaine into Canada. He could have drugs collected at sea in the Caribbean, he said, before swapping them onto fishing trawlers closer to Newfoundland, for safe passage to harbour. The two had met before, but their first deal hadn’t worked out. Now Tello, who lived a double life as a Toronto real estate,,, >click to read< 11:56

The drug-smuggling fishermen vowing to clear their name – Why was there no trace of cocaine?

On 29 May 2010, a small fishing boat left the Isle of Wight on what its crew claim was a routine trip to catch lobster and crab in the English Channel. At the same time, a major surveillance operation was also under way, led by the Serious Organised Crime Agency – which had intelligence about cocaine being on board a giant container ship sailing from South America. That night, one of the ships being monitored and the men’s fishing boat briefly came close together – though exactly how close is still disputed. click here to read the story 11:56