This is the dramatic moment two drug smugglers leapt into the sea in a failed bid to escape the authorities after being caught with £37million of cocaine in their boat.
Bruce Knowles, 55, and Ferhat Gumrukguoglu, 31, were intercepted by Border Force near East Benacre Broads in Suffolk with 350kg of cocaine in the hull of their boat.
Footage released by Britain’s ‘FBI‘, the National Crime Agency (NCA), shows Dutchman Gumrukguoglu, leap from the vessel and swim towards the beach.
The pair had initially stopped when the Border Force cutter moved in but Knowles restarted the engines to the rigid hulled inflatable boat and tried to escape.
The boat was grounded on the beach and officers moved in to arrest Knowles, after he also jumped overboard during the incident on June 24.
Officers from Norfolk and Suffolk Police chased Gumrukguoglu after he fled from the beach, arresting him later that day in Wrentham, Norfolk.
The boat was towed to a harbour in Lowestoft where it was searched by NCA officers, who found the £39million narcotics haul hidden under a tarpaulin.
Investigators believe Knowles, from Dereham, and Gumrukguoglu, from the Netherlands, travelled towards French waters to pick up the drugs from a larger ship, before bringing them back to the UK.
Both men were interviewed and gave no comment, but were subsequently charged with importing a controlled drug.
They pleaded guilty to the offence at Ipswich Crown Court on Tuesday and are now facing a prison sentence.
NCA Branch Commander Lydia Bloomfield said: ‘Knowles and Gumrukguoglu knew they were going to lose a huge quantity of drugs when they were intercepted at sea by our Border Force colleagues.
‘Both were working for a wider organised crime group, who will now feel the effects of a loss of this amount.’
Source: Dailymail.co.uk
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