Gang caught fishing £40m cocaine haul from sea using GPS trackers

A drug smuggling gang was caught trying to retrieve £40m of cocaine from the sea after the entire haul was nearly lost when their GPS trackers failed.

The 500kg haul was dropped from a cargo ship about 40 nautical miles off the Isle of Wight, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

David Paterson, 49, had sailed from Portsmouth with two others in the early hours of 17 August to fish out the drugs.

However, the plan started to unravel when the ship sailed past their inflatable boat.

Lewis Watts, 37, who was back on shore directing operations via WhatsApp, told Paterson: "Big ship has passed you, chase it and flash lights."

It got worse, as the GPS trackers fitted to the cocaine also failed and the men had to return empty-handed.

Paterson, who worked on a Scottish oil rig, played no further part following the botched pick-up.

However, the trackers started working the following morning so the smugglers scrambled a new crew to set out from Eastbourne harbour, some 70 miles further along the coast in East Sussex.

The NCA said Adil Nolan, 40, and two others - who can't be named for legal reasons - pulled 16 bales of cocaine from the sea using an inflatable boat.

They landed their stash at Medmerry Beach, near Selsey in West Sussex, but police were waiting for them.

Seven members of the group admitted their roles and four more were convicted at Portsmouth Crown Court on 22 July.

Daniel Jamieson, 41, from Ramsden Heath in Essex, was convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine.

The court heard he pretended to be a legitimate businessman and used a false name to buy a maritime company so he could get hold of a boat.

Sam Brown, 33, who was from Essex but lived in Liverpool, played a key role in recruiting the others, including his friend Harry Kennedy, 38, who was drafted in to help move the cocaine after they discovered the GPS trackers were working again.

Brown and Kennedy both admitted conspiracy to smuggle cocaine, while Lewis Watts, from Tilbury, Essex, was convicted of the same charge during the trial.

'Right-hand man'

The NCA said Watts was Jamieson's "right-hand man", using a credit card to fund the plot, researching locations for the boat to land, and acting as a go-between.

Paterson, who was on the botched first pick-up, was also found guilty of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine, while Nolan, who skippered the boat on the second mission, admitted the same charge

Charlotte Blenman, 34, from Boscombe, Bournemouth, was one of five tasked with moving the drugs from the beach. She was cleared over the conspiracy but convicted of assisting an organised crime group.

The others in the landing party were Roy Harmer, 46, from Bournemouth, Neil Pinchbeck, 43, from Poole, Thomas Stewart, 40, from Peterborough and Ricky Platt, 49, from Boscombe, Dorset.

All four men admitted assisting an organised crime group. Each defendant will be sentenced on 5 and 6 November.

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"This was a large seizure of cocaine and represents a serious loss for the crime group," said the NCA's senior investigating officer Jules Harriman.

"Their profits can no longer be ploughed back into further offending and we've prevented these toxic drugs from reaching UK streets where they poison peoples lives."

(c) Sky News 2026: Gang caught fishing £40m cocaine haul from sea using GPS trackers