A British court today cleared a man of playing a role in a €230 million cocaine-smuggling plot off the Co Cork coast in 2007.
The trial, which began at Blackfriars Crown Court in London on February 11th, heard the smuggling plot was foiled after a boat carrying the consignment of more than 1,500kg (3,300lb) of cocaine was shipwrecked near Dunlough Bay on the Irish coast in July 2007.
John Edney, a mechanic, was accused of arranging three Land Rovers for use by the gang, but a jury of six men and six women found him not guilty of conspiring to supply class A drugs.
Mr Edney (57) from Sutton-at-Hone, Kent, breathed a loud sigh of relief in the dock at the back of the court as he was cleared. He had told the jury he thought the 4x4s were going to be used at a fishing complex in France and said he had no idea there was any link with a drugs plot.
The men behind the plot tried to land 62 bales of cocaine, which weighed 1,554kg, on a remote point on the Co Cork coast using a rigid hull inflatable boat.
Prosecutors, who described the plan as “high stakes”, said the drugs were transferred to the boat from a catamaran that had crossed the Atlantic from the Caribbean.
But the boat ran out of fuel in rough seas off the Irish coast on July 2nd, 2007, and began to sink, leaving Gerard Hagan and Joe Daly to swim ashore near Dunlough Bay in Co Cork. Another man, Martin Wanden, had to be rescued by helicopter and was taken to hospital, where he gave a false name.
Wanden, Daly and a third man, Perry Wharrie, were convicted after a trial in Cork, Ireland, while Hagan pleaded guilty.
Retired Metropolitan Police detective Michael Daly (49), who organised the logistics, and Alan Wells (56) have also admitted their parts in the conspiracy. They will be sentenced at a later date.
Mark Gadsden, prosecuting, told the court Daly was “pivotal” to the conspiracy, organising the logistics, purchasing the inflatable boat and a rescue vessel and finding “safe houses” to be rented near the remote, disused pier where it was intended the drugs would be brought ashore.
“He was also one of the principals who was to have shared in the large profits which were to be made from this conspiracy,” Mr Gadsden said. Wells assisted Daly in the logistics, he added.
PA