18 years for ‘Captain Coke’

A drug baron has been jailed for 18 years for trying to smuggle two tonnes of cocaine worth £160m into the UK on a luxury yacht.

Andrew Cole, 33, was the link between senior members of an international organised crime group and a UK gang planning to take delivery of the drugs near the English channel.

Cole was aboard the £1m yacht, Kahu, when it was stopped 80 miles off the coast of Plymouth on 9 September last year.

Border Force Maritime Command’s 42-metre cutter ‘Searcher’ and coastal patrol vessel ‘Alert’ had tracked the yacht’s movements.

Exeter Crown Court had heard the drugs were thought to have originated from South America loaded on board Kahu, which left Port St Charles in Barbados on August 27 last year.

The specialist BCA and Border Force officers intercepted and boarded the Kahu north of Guernsey, finding the massive coke seizure. The Australian Federal Police was also involved.

Cole admitted smuggling the Class A drugs in January this year while the captain and four crew members were acquitted of involvement by a jury.

Cole had been involved in planning the smuggling operation, travelling to Costa Rica and Panama in May 2021.

In early July he flew from Panama to Miami and the following day he flew to Barbados, where the Kahu arrived on 29 July from Florida.

During the journey across the Atlantic, Cole was in possession and control of a Samsung mobile phone which he and the crew used to contact others.

Messages show that the Kahu was to rendezvous with another vessel coming from Suriname in South America and take possession of the drugs.

Cole’s role was to ensure safe receipt, passage and transfer of the cocaine to a crew who were going to come out from the UK to take delivery of it near the English Channel.

On 28 August Cole sent a message: “Count is complete. 2000 bits,” which meant 2,000 kilos of cocaine had been handed over to the Kahu. The cocaine was between 60% and 80% pure.

Cole, who agreed to provide further text updates to one of the organisers using the name Carlos or Rembrandt, sent another message saying he was looking forward to getting back to the UK and ‘making you proud boss’.

He also he and the crew were in good spirits.

Cole provided accomplices with a drawing to show how the transfer to the offloading crew would happen, and that he would go into the water from the Kahu’s swimming platform to assist.

As Cole and the crew realised a Border Force vessel was tailing them, a text message was sent from the mobile: ‘We are getting boarded.’

The response, which was unread, said: ‘Throw satphones what you use. Throw all phones. Did you copy, throw all phones.’

A failed attempt was made to smash the phone, which provided a running commentary on the drug smuggling operation.

After Cole was jailed for 18 years, Gavin Heckles, NCA operations manager, said: ‘This was a huge haul of cocaine, which we and our law enforcement partners have prevented coming into the UK drugs market and being sold across UK communities, where it would have fuelled more crime.’