| Brandy for the Parson? |
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Page 2 of 8 In 1996, a storm forced a converted trawler, the Sea Mist, to dock unexpectedly in Cork en route to Britain. She was found to be carrying 599 kilos of cocaine, with a street value of £80 million. The scale of Wright’s unprecedented global drugs trafficking network was revealed. The drugs came from South America and the Caribbean, where they were delivered onto yachts by speedboat or by parachute from light aircraft. Off the Cornish coasts, small local boats would come out to meet the yachts and unload their cargo. This is the sinister side of modern-day smuggling: nowadays the cargo can be drugs, firearms or even people - whether brutally trafficked or willing migrants. Smuggling into Cornwall is evident. The region is renowned for spectacular raids of cocaine and cannabis smugglers, and large finds of lethal weaponry stowed on board vessels. In 1997, a trawler skipper from Newlyn was jailed for ten years for bringing 8.2 tonnes of cannabis resin into port. The drugs had been left on the seabed just outside territorial waters. A lifeboat answering a distress call to a yacht sinking off Falmouth found the occupants throwing kilos of cannabis into the sea as the vessel was so heavily laden, and parcels of cocaine are often handed into police by early morning beachcombers. |
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