Cocaine gang jailed over smuggling plot

Updated 12.39 Mon Nov 05 2007

Keywords: drugs, Cocaine

The two leaders of a gang have been jailed for 16 years for attempting to smuggle £6.5 million of cocaine on to Britain's streets.

Lee Morgan, 41, from Burnley, and Dutchman Johan Ranft, 40, led an eight-member Anglo-Dutch gang which planned to buy the drugs from South American drugs barons and sell them to dealers in the North West of England.

The gang had stashed 198lb (90kg) of cocaine on board a yacht and sailed across the Atlantic, before being caught at a beach in Wales

The other members of the gang were jailed for between 11-and-a-half years and 15 years at Preston Crown Court.

The gang had stashed 198lb (90kg) of cocaine on board a yacht and sailed across the Atlantic, before being caught preparing to unload the haul at a beach in Wales by officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in May last year.

Judge Stuart Baker said the plot had only failed because of a combination of a mechanical problem with the yacht and unfavourable weather conditions.

He added: "The way in which the scheme was carried out may in some respects appear amateurish but there was nothing amateurish about the size of the scheme or the profits that could have been recorded."