[imagesource: iStock]

On September 30 last year, on a not so sunny day in Lowestoft, Suffolk, Steven Brogan, 36, and Anthony Reilly, 34, headed off on a jet ski to a pickup point in the Netherlands to collect some cocaine.

On their way back to England, with two kilograms of the stuff (worth approximately £200 000) tucked safely in a backpack, they ran into a bit of trouble.

The pair, it seems, didn’t anticipate how much fuel it would take to make the round trip.

They stopped alongside a survey vessel and asked the crew for some fuel, reports The Independent, but they were denied.

That’s when things really went south.

They were stranded, and at one point pitched into the sea, following which the Lowestoft RNLI Lifeboat and HM Coastguard helicopter from Hull was called in to help rescue them.

That awkward moment when the authorities have to rescue you during a drug-smuggling operation.

One of the men was showing signs of hypothermia and the other of exhaustion so they were airlifted to a hospital in Gorleston in Norfolk.

Image: Steven Brogan and Anthony Reilly, Suffolk Police/PA

The helicopter crew were suspicious of their behaviour and alerted police. Brogan and Reilly were arrested on arrival at the hospital.

Brogan told the officers he was “fishing by jet ski but ran into difficulty when they ran out of fuel”.

The two of them appeared in court this week, and Judge Recorder Richard Christie QC was not kind.

Brogan was sentenced to seven years and six months in jail, and Reilly, who admitted to the offence before his partner, was sentenced to seven years.

Officers had searched Brogan’s van and trailer, finding maps of the North Sea, a pick-up point in the Netherlands, tide timetables, a mobile phone, and diving equipment.

[The judge] said it was a “sophisticated enterprise”, adding: “There was potentially a visit to the Suffolk area from the North west of England on an earlier occasion to at least recce the situation.

“It was only because of the weather that things went badly wrong for you and you were very fortunate to be picked up and at public expense taken to hospital,” he added.

I dunno, doesn’t seem that sophisticated to me when you run out of fuel.

Mark Stevens, representing Brogan, tried to make him sound like a good guy by telling the court that he was a successful boxer and worked to help children within the community.

The sad bit, if it’s true, is that Stephen Mather, representing Reilly, said that he only got involved because he’s run into financial trouble during the pandemic.

This story can be summed up as ‘tough times and terrible planning’.

[source:independent]