Five men jailed over £34m cocaine smuggling attempt

Five men were jailed for a plan to smuggle 425kg of cocaine into the UK through Eastbourne Marina on England’s south coast.

The drugs, valued at £34 million, had been put into waterproof bags with GPS trackers and dropped into the English Channel for the crew to collect.

Alan Colquhoun and William Donohoe organised the operation, directing the crew and arranging how the drugs would be moved inland.

The National Crime Agency arrested the men in June 2026 as the cocaine was being unloaded from the fishing boat New Horizon.

Colquhoun and Donohoe each received 16 years in prison; skipper Ian Smith was sentenced to 12 years, Daniel Ruffell to eight years, and Jacob Cronin to six years and eight months.

The seizure removed nearly half a tonne of cocaine from the planned supply chain, and the NCA says tackling the threat from Class A drugs remains a priority.