A Royal Navy ship and US Coast Guard boarding team seized more than 400kg of cocaine worth around £24m on Britain’s streets from a boat in the Caribbean, according to a Royal Navy press release.

Caribbean-based patrol ship HMS Medway and her embarked US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment spotted the vessel near the Dominican Republic with help from a patrol aircraft.

Following a tense chase, the vessel was boarded and the drugs discovered with three crew members detained.

“To secure an interdiction on our first day dedicated to this type of operation in this period has been tremendous,” said Commander Chris Hollingworth, Commanding Officer of Medway.

“Everyone involved demonstrated their professionalism during a challenging pursuit. It might be the first, but we’re going to make sure that it won’t be the last, and I speak on behalf of everyone here in saying this has galvanised our determination to succeed.”

The boat contained several large packages which were quickly confirmed as being cocaine prior to being seized and brought aboard the warship.

It’s believed the boat had come from South America, a common route taken by smugglers at this time of year.

After an overnight operation to secure the contraband – estimated by the National Crime Agency to be worth around £24m, had those drugs reached the streets of the UK – and detain the crew, the vessel was sunk by Medway’s gunnery team.

The destruction of the drugs smuggling vessel, which is normal for this type of operation, ensures it is no longer used for illegal activity while also providing valuable gunnery training.

“Although we talk of these boats being commonplace in the Caribbean, that doesn’t in any way diminish the achievement of landing a bust like this,” said a member of the boarding team, US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment 404, who wishes to remain anonymous.

“Together with our partners on board Medway and up in the skies above us, we’re able to smash a hole in the supply chain and disrupt the movement of these harmful drugs before they have the chance to harm people at home and abroad.”

Medway recently helped the people of the Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos in their recovery efforts following Hurricanes Ian and Fiona.

“It’s a perfect example of Medway’s versatility, and demonstrates my team’s ability to shift from Disaster Relief Operations to Counter Illicit Trafficking Operations without missing a beat,” added Cdr Hollingworth.

“I’m exceptionally proud of the collective effort of my ship’s company and our colleagues from the US Coast Guard for their proactive attitude and total commitment to the task.”

Tom Dunlop
Tom Dunlop
Tom has spent the last 13 years working in the defence industry, specifically military and commercial shipbuilding. His work has taken him around Europe and the Far East, he is currently based in Scotland.

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48 COMMENTS

  2. I know it is good gunnery practice but can the RN not just take it is as “spoils of war” and bring it back to U.K. shores to auction it off raising some funds for said operation – I guess it depends on the state of the ship you interdict.

  3. Good work, and validation of the effectiveness of the River 2s for constabulary work without a helo: nice teamwork with the US patrol aircraft and Coastguard.

    • You say it’s valuation of the River’s having no helicopter and then acknowledge what’s clear in the article which is that an aircraft was key to the operation. How does a River carry out maritime interdiction that requires air assets when it’s not in range of land based aircraft?

      • Then ship based aircraft from some allied navy will be used. Simple! The application of results based outcomes has many permutations.😀

      • As Marius says the answer is teamwork; as is the case for most of these constabulary and anti-piracy efforts these days. We used to use an expensive frigate for this work, but a land based fixed wing aircraft is a lot better than a ship based helo. At a point in time the frigate was replaced by a batch 1 River. Drug smuggling in the Caribbean is policed by a network of several navies including Canadians I think. Its a multi-national effort lead by the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the US Coastguard.
        https://www.voanews.com/a/us-coast-guard-cutter-seizes-1-billion-dollars-in-drugs/6447792.html
        If a River was tasked to an interdiction role as a singleton it would need intelligence supplied by a satellite, or a P8; which I believe it is fully equipped to receive.

        • Or if we’d built the River’s with a helicopter hangar then they wouldn’t have needed a P8 deployed with them.

          Thanks for your information on the Carribean but there are plenty of areas where operations are undertaken with either no or partial air cover.

          It’s also worth mentioning how essential a helicopter is in delivering humanitarian assistance. River’s can only drop off supplies at the dockside.

          • How often does it have to be repeated on here? Despite the lack of a hangar, a River B2 can embark a helicopter, if one is needed and available, for a significant length of time.

          • Thank you I was thinking the same thing. A helicopte4 certainly not an asset to be dismissed but I suspect equally it would be wrong to dismiss the importance of a P8 or similar in such an operation. There always overlaps but a helicopter usually can’t simply take the place of such a platform it’s an intermediary between the hi end recon and the vessel it operates from.

          • You need a hangar to permanently embark a helicopter. You can’t carry them in all weather’s and can’t maintain them without one.

          • Permanently, no. Weeks, yes. Long enough to disembark humanitarian aid, for certain. In May a Wildcat was embarked on HMS Trent for two weeks, conducting operations in the Mediteranean and the Atlantic. With over 200 takeoffs and landings “in different weather and sea conditions”, I think you’ll find it’s not as limited as you seem to imagine.

          • Fair point about the humanitarian aid scenario. Worth noting though that the River would normally be paired up with an RFA vessel which would host one or more helos on those deployments.
            With their crane I would see the Rivers acting as ‘lighters’ unloading stores from the RFA

          • You’re right they often are accompanied by an RFA. But given the RFA has a helicopter and 30 mm guns the River is completely superfluous

        • Paul, An unrivaled amount of work is carried out by “interested parties” though the JIATF(S) in Key West. They have an amazing number of Nations and Agencies within the one comple, and can control ll of this from there!

      • To me this is a class of ship that screams UAV required. Avoid the weight and cost of a full manned helicopter, no need to carry weapons, but add the ability to get sensors airborne and extend the observational range. Most of the benefits of a helicopter at a fraction of the cost. Makes so much sense its a 100% certainty it won’t happen.

  4. “Everyone involved demonstrated their professionalism during a challenging pursuit.”

    Good to hear the smugglers are conducting themselves in a professional manner.

    • Big pointy ones. Think it has duel feeds but normally just single feeds fitted. I’ve got memory blank. Need to jog my memory

      • Need someone who actually knows the system to answer. It’s not memory blank I’ve got it’s a lack of knowledge. 😂😂

    • Its the same cannon ( 30mm Bushmaster Chain Gun ) as fitted to Apache. RN use HEI/HEIT. It has a selectable single /burst/ auto setting. It took over from the earlier 30mm Oerlikon cannons because its got a smaller round dispersion error at range and its almost impossible to get a jam on it.

      • Yeeee was hoping you would have the answer. Do the RN use just a single feed for the gun? When looking at pictures I’m not too sure where the other feed would join in. The ammo box and feed are large on the left with the seat on the right.
        I will assume HEI is high explosive impact with the T being tracer?

        • Been having a look at the chain gun and it’s seems a versatile weapon. It has been integrated into the striker for a shorad system with stinger or hellfire pods.
          It looks as if the cannon can be mounted on the JLTV vehicle also and with the remote mount from Kongsberg.
          It should be natural choice for boxer and uk vehicles that need a cannon. Hopefully when there is a decision on Ajax and the CTA40 cannon uk forces can move forward with other cannon needs.

  6. Well done on the interception, the more drugs stopped the better, I’m no eco activist but surely this sinking unnecessarily adds to polluting the seas, (unless the smugglers are onboard) couldn’t the boats be given to needy communities etc ?

  7. Pollution? It should be towed to shore and sold at auction or disposed of correctly. Ivan anyone else just dump their unwanted boat in the ocean?

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