Scots cocaine smuggler faces long sentence after being snared outside village pub with £42m haul

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Scots drugs smuggler arrested after a haul of cocaine – with a street value of £42m – was seized in a van outside a Yorkshire pub faces a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted by a jury.Mark Moran from Ardrishaig secretly arranged to sail out into the North Sea to collect the huge consignment of 524 high-purity 1kg blocks of cocaine and bring it ashore in the "dead of night", but he had no idea he was being tracked by the National Crime Agency (NCA) just waiting to snare the group.The men were arrested at a pub in the village of Lelley, where they were staying overnight after picking up the cocaine haul, and 23-year-old Moran denied conspiracy to import cocaine, but he was convicted by a jury on a majority verdict after a trial.

His co-defendant, Anthony McAllister, 33, also from Scotland, was cleared of both charges, while Colombian national Didier Reyes, 40, had already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine.

Moran and Reyes will be sentenced at a later hearing, reports Hull Live.Angus MacDonald, prosecuting, claimed that Moran, Mr McAllister and Reyes got into a boat on May 3 and travelled out into the North Sea.

They returned in "pitch darkness" in the early hours to near Easington Beach Caravan Park on the English coast.When they came ashore with the 524kg of high-purity cocaine, with a street value of £42m they were allegedly joined by a fourth man from Scotland, who had brought a van to transport the four of them and the cocaine.After reportedly unloading the cocaine from the boat and putting it into the van, they travelled to the Stag's Head Inn in Lelley, a village east of Hull, where the group were snared.Mr MacDonald said: "None of those men knew, however, that their every movement had been