Drugs fixer jailed for 28 years

24 September 2012 Last updated at 10:49 ET

A career criminal has been jailed for 28 years for his role in a 170m euro cocaine shipment that was seized off the coast of County Cork in 2008.

John Alan Brooks, 61, bought the yacht and hired the crew to smuggle the 1.5 tonnes of cocaine into the UK.

It was the second biggest drugs seizure ever made by drugs enforcement authorities in the Irish Republic.

Brooks, from Blackpool, was described as an international fixer for organised crime groups across the world.

He masterminded a plot to smuggle the cocaine from Venezuela to the UK.

He paid 160,000 US dollars cash for the Dances with Waves yacht, which was used to transport the drugs from the Caribbean. He also hired the three crew who sailed the yacht across the Atlantic.

Brooks has had a criminal career lasting for more than three decades.

On Monday he was jailed for 28 years after a jury at the Crown Court in Birmingham found him guilty on a ten to two majority.

Unknown to Brooks and the crew of Dances with Waves, the yacht was being tracked by satellite as it made its way from Trinidad to the south coast of Ireland on its way to the Welsh coast in November, 2008.

Go here to see the original:
Drugs fixer jailed for 28 years