The Bolton drug dealer and the £2m cruise ship cocaine plot
09.03.2024 - 11:11
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A drug dealer from Greater Manchester who police said 'ran an organised crime group' has been jailed for 23 years after two multi-million pound cocaine smuggling conspiracies were smashed.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said Paul Farrell, 44, who has links to addresses in Manchester and Bolton, and Christopher Mealey, 'employed' two other men, Benn Bath and Joshua Paige, to collect cocaine from a corrupt cruise ship worker, Serbian Milos Bigovic, 22.
Bigovic hid cocaine worth £2m aboard the ship where he worked behind the bar - the Marella Discovery 2 - but was caught when he tried to offload it to Bath, 36, and Paige, 31, who were waiting in an inflatable boat under the ship's hull.
READ MORE: First picture of 'caring dad and talented DJ' Graham Cox at centre of Bolton murder probe
As the cruise ship was moored off the Isle of Wight, in the early hours of April 25, 2020, Bigovic dragged a holdall containing the drugs from his cabin to a portside deck, attached a rope to it and lowered the bag down.
Bath, of Staplehurst, Kent; and Paige, of High Halstow, Kent, were said to be experienced seamen who worked in the maritime industry. Days earlier, they had sailed Bath's boat, the Chatham Albatross, from the River Medway in Kent to the Isle of Wight then bought the inflatable for £5,000 and towed it to the Marella so they could accept the drugs under the cover of darkness.
The drugs, said the NCA, had been smuggled onto the cruise ship in Cartegena, Colombia, a month earlier. But as the cocaine transfer happened, Border Force officers were watching and moved in to arrest the pair after the inflatable returned to the Albatross.
Realising they were about to be caught, Bath and Paige dissolved the drugs into the sea.
The