Scots who led crime gang jailed for 16 years over £34m cocaine smuggling plot

Two Scottish men who played a pivotal role in an organised crime group responsible for attempting to smuggle £34 million worth of cocaine into the UK have been jailed for 16 years.

Alan Colquhoun, 49, from Alloa, and 38-year-old William Donohoe, from Airdrie, were the joint organisers of the sea smuggling operation, which saw 425kg of cocaine recovered from the English Channel and brought towards Eastbourne Marina.

The pair directed a crew of three other men and liaised with an international crime group responsible for trafficking the Class A drugs into the UK.

They were arrested on June 8 as the cocaine was being hauled from the fishing vessel New Horizon and loaded onto a flatbed truck for transportation to other parts of the UK, following a months-long investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Colquhoun and Donohoe had expected to receive £80,000 for their role in retrieving the drugs from the water and moving them on to other criminal groups across the country.

The cocaine had been packed into waterproof bags fitted with GPS trackers before being dropped into the sea from another vessel for the gang to collect.

The two ringleaders carried out reconnaissance along the south coast of England to identify the best location to bring the drugs ashore.

They also hired a van in Scotland, falsely claiming it would be used to transport pub stock, before driving it south to move the cocaine.

Colquhoun joined the crew aboard the New Horizon, alongside skipper Ian Smith, 50, Jacob Cronin, 32, and Daniel Ruffell, 36.

Smith, a fisherman from Eastbourne, had been recruited to sail out and locate the drugs. Cronin, also a fisherman by trade, helped prepare the vessel before it set sail.

Ruffell acted as a lookout for the operation. He owed a significant debt to the criminal group behind the importation and joined the crew to help pay it off.

Donohoe remained on land while the others were at sea and was arrested at a petrol station.

Ruffell hid in a cupboard aboard the boat when armed NCA officers moved in to arrest the men.

All five were sentenced at Lewes Crown Court.

Colquhoun and Donohoe were both sentenced to 16 years in prison, reduced from 24 years for their early guilty pleas.

Smith was sentenced to 12 years reduced from 18 for his guilty plea.

Ruffell, who has 21 convictions for 43 previous offences, was sentenced to eight years reduced from 12 for admitting his guilt. And Cronin was sentenced to six years and eight months, reduced from ten years for his early guilty plea.

NCA senior investigating officer Carl Barrass said Colquhoun and Donohoe had acted for a criminal group with international reach and were key figures in moving large quantities of Class A drugs into the UK.

He told STV News: “[Their role] was pivotal. Without Colquhoun and Donohoe, the importation wouldn’t have been able to take place. We would say that Alan Colquhoun and William Donohoe are almost the highest level of the organised crime group. 

“The upstream and overseas part of the group would not have been able to import this commodity without Colquhoun and Donahoe.  They were complicit from start to finish in the arrangements of this importation and the execution of it.

“The cocaine was all packaged into kilo blocks. The packages all contain different markings, four or five different markings and these would have been utilised for the importation to be split up and passed between crime groups across the UK.

“It is clear that William Donohoe and Alan Colquhoun were skilled to be able to conduct what is a risky importation, with a lot of moving parts and timings.

“It was a huge amount of cocaine, almost half a tonne.  Even though this cocaine was harboured on the Southeast Coast because of the large amount it was clear that it would have been distributed widely throughout the UK and into Scotland.”

He said the investigation had removed nearly half a tonne of cocaine from circulation and left the five men unable to continue their criminal activities.

The investigation was supported by Border Security Command’s National Deep Rummage Team, Sussex Police, Police Scotland and the Maritime, Aviation and Military Intervention Cell.

The NCA said tackling the threat posed by Class A drugs remained a priority, with investigations continuing alongside law enforcement partners in the UK and overseas.