Banana boat drug smugglers jailed

The drugs were hidden in a box of bananas

Three men have been jailed for a total of 39 years for smuggling £2m of cocaine on a banana boat.

The two port officials from Southampton and one Venezuelan man pleaded guilty to smuggling eight kilograms of the drug into the UK via Portsmouth.

Southwark Crown Court heard on Friday that a lengthy customs operation was responsible for catching the men in the act in December last year.

Paul Bean, a port operations supervisor of Graham Road, Southampton, was sentenced to 13 years for two counts of smuggling while port quality control operator Shane Lewis was handed three years in jail.

'Santa Maria'

Robinson Alberto Viera, 40, from Venezuela, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on one count of smuggling cocaine into the UK.

The court heard that a vessel called the Santa Maria carrying bananas from the Caribbean docked at Portsmouth Commercial Port on 1 December.

Customs officers watched the cargo being unloaded from the docks to Southampton railway station, where they arrested Bean and Viera as they transferred about 8kg of cocaine from a box of bananas into a black suitcase.

Bean was also charged with a previous attempt of smuggling about 12kg of cocaine.

In sentencing the men, His Honour Judge Christopher Elwen said that Paul Bean was "pivotal to the importations and played a leading and important role." He also said that Viera was a trusted lieutenant of Bean's.

The total estimated street value of the two consignments of drugs was £1.9m.