The biggest ever haul of heroin seized at sea has been bagged during a Royal Navy-led operation off the coast of Africa.
Australian sailors from HMAS Darwin – operating as part of a Royal Navy-led task group – pounced on a suspect dhow and found more than a tonne of the drug, worth £140m.
Pictures: Royal Australian Navy
A ROYAL Navy-led operation has bagged the biggest ever haul of heroin at sea – more than a tonne seized on a dhow off the east coast of Africa.
Australian warship HMAS Darwin, operating under the command of a Royal Navy Commodore and his British team, made the record-breaking 1,032kg haul of the drug – worth an estimated £140m on the streets of the UK.
The heroin was discovered aboard a dhow in the Indian Ocean, 30 miles off the coast of Tanzania.
HMAS Darwin's crew found the dhow during an operation by Combined Task Force 150, which is dedicated to strangling terrorism on the high seas and is currently headed by Royal Navy Commodore Jeremy Blunden and 24 RN personnel, all based in Bahrain.
“This is the sixth seizure of heroin since January and is by far the largest ever made by the organisation. It represents a significant blow to the drug smuggling networks,” said Cdre Blunden.
“We know that heroin trafficked into East Africa reaches the shores of the UK and Europe which makes the success particularly satisfying for the UK officers and sailors serving in the task force.”
Darwin's boarding team head off to inspect the dhow
As for this particular operation, Cdre Blunden said that “pinpointing a dhow in 2.4 million square miles of ocean” posed “a real challenge”.
The drugs bust came at the end of a sustained operation. Once the suspect dhow was boarded, the Australian Navy team worked through the night in difficult conditions to find the drugs hidden in amongst a cargo of cement. The heroin was subsequently destroyed.
“This is a major heroin seizure, which has removed a major source of funding from terrorist criminal networks. The search tested the steel of Darwin’s boarding parties,” said HMAS Darwin's CO, Cdr Terry Morrison.
One of Darwin's boats brings back some of the drugs
Cdre Blunden added: “I am extremely proud of the efforts of my team and the Australian ship Darwin in bringing this particular case to a successful conclusion.”
CTF 150 has seized nearly two and a half tonnes of drugs this year – surpassing the two tonnes captured throughout 2013.
Hakan Demirbuken, Programme Management Officer at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said according to the UN’s records, the “1,032kg haul not only represents the largest ever amount of heroin seized from dhows on the high seas, but doubles the previous record which was also set by CTF 150 in 2013."
The drugs interception is part of an international campaign to stop drug smuggling in the Indian Ocean – profits from which are known to help fund terrorist organisations – as well as wider criminal activity at sea.