Yacht was tracked by multi-agency task force

ANALYSIS:This drug seizure was down to combined work by gardaí, the Naval Service, Customs and international services

YESTERDAY'S CONVICTION and jailing of three Englishmen for their part in a €400 million drug-smuggling operation marks yet another notable success for the Irish drug interdiction agencies in their battle against international traffickers.

Just last year, two Englishmen were jailed for 30 years, a third for 25 years and a fourth for 10 years when a drug-smuggling operation went awry in Dunlough Bay near Mizen Head in west Cork and some €440 million worth of cocaine was washed ashore.

But if that success was due in part to misfortune on the part of the traffickers, this seizure on board the vessel Dances With Waves was down to impressive work by gardaí, the Naval Service and Customs, working together with international agencies in what is known as the Joint Task Force operation.

The JTF operation, codenamed Seabight, was intelligence-led and involved the JTF working closely with the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (Narcotics) (MAOC-N), based in Lisbon, Portugal, and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) based in the UK.

Speaking after yesterday's case at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, Det Supt Pat Byrne of the Garda National Drugs Unit said the success of the operation showed that Ireland, through the JTF, could deliver results in the war on drug-trafficking.

"It shows our capacity to deliver - this was the first major operation of its kind involving us and MAOC-N, and it showed that Irish law enforcement agencies can deliver and play our part in taking large quantities of drugs off the streets of Europe," he said.

Det Supt Byrne's comments were echoed by Commander Eugene Ryan of the Naval Service, who said the Irish agencies had repaid the faith shown in them by MAOC-N director Tim Manhire and other senior officials in the Lisbon-based centre.

Head of Customs drugs law enforcement Michael Colgan pointed out that Operation Seabight showed the benefits of pooling resources both through the JTF and internationally through MAOC-N, as no single country can combat drug trafficking on its own.

The JTF had received intelligence from MAOC-N that an organised crime gang was planning to import a large quantity of cocaine into Europe, and close co-operation with Soca in the UK led to the identification of Dances with Waves as the vessel possibly being used.

Further inquiries established it left Trinidad and Tobago on October 3rd to cross the Atlantic, heading for the southwest coast of Ireland, and a decision was taken by the JTF at Haulbowline on November 3rd to intercept her as she approached Ireland.

The LÉ Niamh, LÉ Róisín and LÉ Orla were dispatched, and on the night of November 5th the LÉ Niamh identified a vessel at the Porcupine Seabight as possibly being Dances with Waves, and a decision was taken to board her to establish her identity.

A party from the LÉ Niamh put to sea in a Rib and boarded the yacht, on which the three men on board identified themselves as Philip Doo, David Mufford and Christopher Wiggins and claimed the vessel was registered in the UK and bound for Liverpool.

However, the Naval party had information that the yacht had been bought in the name of an Irish citizen, Richard Taffe, and a copy of his passport application bore a photograph of Philip Doo, so suspicions were confirmed and it was decided to detain the vessel.

Mufford and Wiggins were transferred back to the LÉ Niamh in horrendous conditions. Doo stayed with Naval Service personnel who noted an entry in the log from two days earlier that they had received 75 bales of an unknown substance in packages.

These packages, which were stored near the stern of the yacht, were later taken ashore at Castletownbere by Customs officers and found to be 1,504kg of cocaine with an average purity of 70 per cent, giving it a potential street value of €400 million.

Examination by Naval Service personnel of the yacht's GPS and charts confirmed information given by the three crew when they were arrested and questioned by detectives about the planned smuggling operation.

The three had all known each other for several years, with both Doo and Mufford having been involved in relationships with Wiggins's sister at different times.

Doo was an experienced yachtsman who was recruited by an international drug-smuggling gang in early 2008.

He approached Mufford who did odd jobs for him and was working at the time stocking shelves in a supermarket in Torquay, and they travelled to Spain where they linked up with Wiggins, who had been living there for 11 years working as a graphic designer.

Doo and Mufford flew from Malaga to Madrid and on to Caracas in Venezuela, from where they entered Trinidad and Tobago via the island of Margarita. On July 24th, 2008, Doo bought the yacht Dances with Waves for $162,000 (€119,000).

Wiggins had only decided to get involved at the last minute, and followed Doo and Mufford a week later to Trinidad and Tobago where they adapted Dances with Waves by installing four large drums to store an additional 3,000 litres of diesel.

They left Trinidad and Tobago on October 3rd and sailed to a point 24 miles off the Venezuelan coast where they collected the consignment of cocaine and set sail across the Atlantic, enduring horrendous weather which caused damage to the yacht.

Doo was the skipper and Wiggins and Mufford were simply crewhands, but Mufford in particular was a poor sailor, having never really been on boats before, and he was so seasick during the voyage that he ended up losing two stone in weight.

As they approached Irish waters they planned to cut close to the Fastnet Rock and then hug the Irish coast up to Tuskar Rock and Wicklow Point before crossing the Irish Sea and meeting with another vessel in Carnarvon Bay, off Holyhead.

However, thanks to the work of the JTF, they never made it to Wales and as Judge Patrick Moran observed yesterday when praising the Irish agencies, countless families in the UK have been spared the havoc that such a huge haul of cocaine would have caused.