FOUR people have been jailed for a total of 31 years for an international cocaine-smuggling plot after a tonne of the drug was seized from a yacht off the coast of Co Cork.
Dawne Powell (56), James Hill (31), David Webster (44), and Philip McElhone (29) were sentenced at Leeds Crown Court yesterday afternoon for trying to smuggle cocaine worth a "mind-boggling" £164 million into the UK.
The four are the final members of a criminal gang to be jailed for 73 years in total for their parts in the operation.
The Makayabella yacht was seized by the Irish Navy on September 23 last year.
Authorities discovered more than a thousand 1kg blocks of high-purity cocaine contained in 41 packages.
A jury found Hill, from Ilkley, West Yorkshire, guilty of conspiracy to import cocaine after a five-day trial.
Powell, from Guiseley, West Yorkshire, was convicted of money laundering but cleared of a charge of conspiracy to import cocaine.
Webster, from Otley, West Yorkshire, and McElhone, from Halton Moor, Leeds, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine at an earlier hearing.
Sentencing Hill, Judge James Spencer said: "This was a serious conspiracy.
"It involved a colossal amount of cash, or the prospect of it, because the street value of the quantity of cocaine which was planned to be imported was over £160m.
"And the quantities of illegal profit therefore were mind-boggling."
