A drug smuggler has been ordered to pay back more than £328,000 after sailing a yacht crammed with tens of millions of pounds worth of cocaine across the Atlantic.
Customs officers busted Gary Swift and his shipmate Scott Kilgour as they were onboard the SY Atrevido anchored off the Pembrokeshire coast in an early morning raid.
Sailing from Suriname in South America to Welsh waters, the pair had more than 750kg of high purity cocaine hidden in "every available storage space" in the boat - including the fridge. However, the smugglers had been under surveillance from law enforcement agencies for weeks, Wales Online reported.
The wholesale value of the Class A haul is estimated to be £24m, with a street value of around £60m.
Swift and Kilgour were sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison last year with a judge telling them the cocaine they were smuggling into the UK would have brought "misery and degradation" to users and blighted communities.
The Liverpudlian pair returned to Swansea Crown Court this week via videolink from Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire for a Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) hearing.
Tim Evans, prosecuting, said the value of the cocaine being shipped by the defendants was put at £24,434,381. Financial investigators had uncovered Swift owned assets to the value of £328,071 including three boats - the Atrevido among them - five caravans at various sites in the north of England, a Hymer mobile home, and a registration number JAS5. These assets will now be sold by the National Crime Agency.
You can read more about the NCA's auctions - where goods seized once owned by criminals - by clicking here.
Judge Paul Thomas QC made a confiscation order in the amount £328,071 and gave Swift three months to pay, though accepted the sale of the assets was out of the defendant's hands. The judge said it should be noted that the value of the drugs seized did not mean the two sailors had benefited from their smuggling operation by that amount.
Proceeds of Crime Act matters against Kilgour were adjourned to a date to be fixed so a final figure for his available assets can be agreed.
A previous Poca hearing heard details of a property in France which the prosecution suggested Swift had an interest in, but which Kilgour claimed he owned having paid £20,000 for it. However the owner of the property in question maintained the sale was never completed. On that occasion judge Thomas said the property dispute was one for the French courts to resolve.
Swansea Crown Court previously heard how Swift, of no fixed abode, and Kilgour, of Bedford Close, Huyton, Liverpool, were arrested shortly before 3am on August 27, 2019, when Border Force officers intercepted their yacht near St Bride's Bay in Pembrokeshire. The boat was towed to Fishguard harbour and searched, with officers uncovering a total of 751 one-kilo packages of high-purity cocaine hidden in "every available storage space" in the vessel, even in the fridge.
Swift - who was described at the earlier sentencing hearing as a "bankrupt builder" who had been "talked into" getting involved in the scheme by a customer at a hotel in Chester he had owned - had been on the radar of law enforcement agencies since 2017 when he had bought another boat, called the Mistral, and sailed to Suriname before coming back across the Atlantic. On this occasion the boat ran aground off the coast of Pembrokeshire and had to be towed to harbour The prosecution believe this was a "dummy run" for what was to come, and though no drugs were recovered the defendant's behaviour - along with items recovered from the yacht including "anti-surveillance devices" - led police to take an interest in his activities.
The £60 million drugs run itself began in December 2018 when Swift, Kilgour, and a number of other people took the ferry from Dover to Calais before heading for Spain. Swift subsequently bought the Atrevido from a man in Majorca for 50,000 Euros and registered the craft in Kilgour's name.
The following March saw Swift fly to Suriname via Amsterdam, spending a week in the South American country before jetting home. While the defendant was in the former Dutch colony he texted friends back in Merseyside talking about a house he was planning to buy there, and discussing where he should put the swimming pool.
Then in June 2019 Swift, aged 53, and his 41-year-old Scouse shipmate Kilgour travelled once more to Spain before setting sail for South America aboard the Atrevido to collect their Class A cargo. The boat was moored in the Canary Islands between June 20 and June 22, and then dropped anchor in Cape Verde on July 4. By July 20 Swift's mobile phone was active in Suriname, a country described in court as "an established transport hub" for exporting wholesale quantities of Class A drugs.
Swift's mobile was picked up again just over a month later when it used a phone mast near St David's in Pembrokeshire. At 2.38am on August 27 Swift again used his phone, just as Border Force officers were approaching the Atrevido.
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