Turkish sailors jailed for 42 years over record UK cocaine bust
Two Turkish sailors who were caught with the biggest haul of cocaine seized in the UK have been jailed for a total of 42 years.
Three tonnes of the Class A drug, with a street value of £500 million, was recovered from the ocean-going tug MV Hamal, about 100 miles off Aberdeen.
The drugs were found hidden in a specially-adapted secret ballast tank in the Tanzanian-registered vessel, which sailed from Istanbul to Tenerife and then to the North Sea, where it was intercepted by the Royal Navy frigate HMS Somerset and the Border Force cutter HMC Valiant.
Mumin Sahin, 47, and Emin Ozmen, 51, who were found guilty of drugs offences after a trial at the High Court in Glasgow, were jailed for 22 years and 20 years respectively.
The judge Lord Kinclaven told the men the quantity of drugs was « not only significant but massive » and said drug trafficking had a « devastating impact » on people and communities. 
He added: « You were involved in a most serious operation of commercial scale involving the transportation of cocaine by ship, in an operation which crossed international and indeed intercontinental boundaries. »
Lord Kinclaven told the ship’s captain Sahin, he was « not at the top of the drugs tree » but had played an important role in the offence, while Ozmen’s role was « to some extent a lesser one”.
Officers boarded the Hamal last April following a tip-off from the French customs body DNRED.
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