UK court hands 30-year prison sentence to Estonian yacht captain for cocaine smuggling

TALLINN - The Bristol Crown Court in the United Kingdom has convicted Estonian yacht captain Richard Must and four other men of trying to import 1.4 tons of cocaine from Suriname to the UK, the daily Postimees reports.

The court handed Must, who was skipper of the catamaran Nomad, a prison sentence of 30 years.

According to the BBC, Must, 49, received the harshest punishment among the gang of cocaine smugglers with the court ruling made on Tuesday.

UK nationals Nigel Clark, 64, and Dean Waters, 60, were each jailed for 28 years. Crew member Raymond Dijkstra, 27, from the Netherlands, was jailed for 18 years and fellow crew member Voldemars Gailis, 21, from Latvia was jailed for 16 years.

Judge Martin Picton said the men were guilty of "international drugs smuggling of the highest order". He said the men had hoped to secure "enormous profits" and that if their attempt to import the cocaine had been successful they would have "flooded UK drugs markets and contributed to significant social harm".