Smugglers lose £35 million of cocaine in English Channel

Captain Stephen Lloyd-Jones kitted out his boat with high-tech cranes, radar equipment and lasers for communication ahead of a secret rendezvous with a drug-carrying cargo ship.

But on the night of the illicit shipment, the 56-year old mariner managed to lose half of the drugs, damage the boat and mangle his fingers.

Things got worse as police were waiting at Eastbourne's Sovereign Harbour to catch Lloyd-Jones and his crew.

The Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne

Lloyd-Jones, a former truck driver, and co-conspirators Kursat Kizilkaya and Tiamo Zanaj, both 33, were part of a huge criminal enterprise to smuggle more than £75 million worth of cocaine into the UK, but now face long jail sentences following the failed mission.

Lloyd-Jones bought a 35ft Kingfisher Sport Explorer for £100,000 and was tasked with sourcing everything needed to receive drugs from a large container ship just north of Guernsey.

The boat, named Well Plumbed, was retrofitted with cranes capable of lifting a tonne of drugs, navigation devices, spare fuel tanks and several methods of communication. Lloyd-Jones was given instructions on how to communicate with the cargo vessel using coded signals from a laser pen.

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Paul Goddard, senior crown prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service's (CPS) complex casework unit, said: “Lloyd-Jones, a self-confessed master mariner, spun a web of lies whilst sourcing the equipment needed to smuggle such a large quantity of drugs, telling people that he was using the boat for commercial diving or needed equipment for family members that were crab fisherman.

“None of this was true at all – he and Zanaj knew exactly what they were doing and had an agreed mission to smuggle a vast amount of cocaine into the UK which if successful would have been worth tens of millions of pounds."

The package was covered in question marks (Image: Crown Prosecution Service)

Images found on Zanaj’s phone showed cocaine had been wrapped in 1kg blocks before being loaded into waterproof holdalls.

Each holdall contained 25 blocks of cocaine, with 14 of these loaded into giant white sacks which were collected from the cargo ship and towed behind Lloyd-Jones’s boat.

Despite all this preparation, the CPS said only a fraction of the expected quantity actually made it to shore, as at least half the load was lost in rough seas during the night of February 17 and 18, 2023.

Challenging conditions caused damage to the boat and issues with the winch, as well as harming the crew, with Lloyd-Jones suffering serious injuries to his fingers.

Large waterproof holdalls in the main cabin of Well Plumbed (Image: Crown Prosecution Service)

When the trio arrived at Eastbourne's Sovereign Harbour the following morning, police were already waiting to take them into custody.

Officers believe the 350kg of cocaine remaining on the ship had a street value of around £35 million.

After a five-week trial at Kingston Crown Court, all three men were found guilty of conspiracy to fraudulently to evade the prohibition on the importation of controlled drugs.

Lloyd-Jones, from Folkestone, was sentenced to 24 years in Prison. Tiamo Zanaj, from Ilford, was sentenced to 22 years behind bars.

Kursat Kizilkaya, from Falmouth in Cornwall, will be sentenced at a later date.