Men jailed for smuggling more than half a tonne of cocaine into UK on small boat

Two men who attempted to smuggle more than half a tonne of cocaine into the UK on a small boat have been jailed.

Officers arrested Daniel Livingstone, 25, outside a hotel in East Yorkshire where he had stayed the night, with 524 kilos of cocaine found in his van on 4 May.

Mark Moran, 23, and 40-year-old Colombian national Didier Tordecilla Reyes had sailed a rigid-hulled inflatable boat from the Hessle slipway before unloading the drugs haul, with a street value of £42m, hours later at a beach.

Moran, who had denied conspiring to supply a class A drug and was convicted by a jury, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Monday.

Livingstone, of Argyll and Bute, previously admitted the charge and was jailed for seven and a half years.

Reyes will be sentenced at a later date.

Livingstone was waiting for the two men at the beach near Easington caravan park and officers from the National Crime Agency saw them unload a number of bags into the van, before ditching the boat on the beach.

Earlier in the day, Moran, also of Argyll and Bute, drove a hire van and the boat from Norwich up to Grimsby.

Senior investigating officer for the NCA Alan French said there was “no doubt” the drugs would have been “sold into communities across the UK”.

“We have disrupted this crime group’s offending and made a huge dent in any profits they were due to make,” he added.

“We are determined to do all we can to tackle the class A drugs threat activity, and protect the public from the horrific damage it causes our society.”

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Moran was convicted on 28 October after an eight-day trial at Hull Crown Court.

Livingstone pleaded guilty on 5 June and Reyes admitted the same offence on 22 July.

A fourth man was cleared by a jury after trial.