Gardaí hail drug smuggler's 28-year jail term

GARDAÍ YESTERDAY welcomed the jailing for 28 years of a British man behind a €400 million drugs shipment seized off the west Cork coast and said the case highlighted the value of inter-agency co-operation in ensuring drug smugglers were brought to justice.

John Alan Brooks (61) was described as the mastermind behind the plan to smuggle 1.5 tonnes of cocaine found on the yacht Dances with Waves into the UK only for the plot to be foiled by Irish law enforcement agencies working with the Serious Organised Crime Agency in the UK known as Soca. Ireland’s joint task force involving the Naval Service, Customs and Garda detained the yacht some 275km southwest of Ireland on November 5th, 2008, and seized 1.5 tonnes of cocaine that had been picked up off South America.

Three crew on the yacht, Philip Doo from Brixham, David Mufford from Torquay and Christopher Wiggins, with an address in Spain, all pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to drug offences and were each sentenced to 10 years in jail in May 2009.

Yesterday, Brooks, a native of Blackpool but resident in Marbella in Spain, was sentenced to 28 years for conspiring to import cocaine into the UK after he was convicted by a jury at Birmingham Crown Court.

Three Irish investigators involved in the case, Assistant Commissioner Tony Quilter, Det Sgt Fergal Foley and retired Cdr Eugene Ryan of the Naval Service all gave evidence for the prosecution.

Mr Quilter was in charge of the Garda National Drugs Unit at the time of the seizure. “This case is part of the commissioner’s strategic response to tackling organised crime and it came about as a result of good co-operation between the Irish law enforcement agencies working in partnership with Soca in the UK and other international law enforcement agencies,” he said. Mr Quilter added that the Garda, Customs and Naval Service were able to provide key evidence in a joint investigation with Soca that enabled them to identify Brooks and charge him, and yesterday’s sentence sent out a message to drug traffickers everywhere.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, where you reside or what role you play in drug-trafficking, law enforcement working collaboratively in a multi-agency approach will pursue you and bring you to justice,” he said.

Brooks was described by Soca regional head of investigations Matt Horne “as the go-to man for organised crime groups” as he was an expert in arranging drug shipments, with a criminal career stretching back nearly 30 years, during which time he has travelled extensively using false identities.

Brooks escaped from a Moroccan jail in 2000 when he was serving a sentence for drug trafficking but Soca established that prior to travelling to Trinidad to oversee the purchase of Dances with Waves in 2008 he had used the same false identity to purchase another boat there in 2006.

That boat was stopped by Spanish authorities in 2007 and officers found 3,400kg of cannabis. Four crew were arrested though Brooks evaded capture.