How a British man allegedly tricked Brazilian sailors into trafficking cocaine

For Brazilian sailor Daniel Guerra, who longed to journey the world, the recruitment advert was a dream come true.

A British yacht proprietor is on the lookout for two deckhands to assist his boat sail throughout the Atlantic from Brazil on one of many nice ocean journeys.

There might be no wage, however all bills might be paid – and most significantly, Mr Guerra will acquire some crusing expertise wanted to develop into a captain.

“My dream was to develop into a captain and work in Europe,” remembers the 43-year-old, who noticed an advert for a web based crusing recruitment company.

“So I am very pleased as a result of I do know my dream journey has begun.”

When Mr Guerra and his colleague Rodrigo Dantas, 32, met their new British employers, issues regarded even brighter.

They fear he is likely to be some snobbish yachtsman or pretend Instagram blogger, and so they’ll make certain they know who’s boss.

However no. George Saul was a smiling, pleasant man with no formality. Sailors, he mentioned, even name him by his nickname – “The Fox.”

“I’ve labored on some boats the place the homeowners have been outdated, tremendous demanding, tremendous impolite and spoke condescendingly to me,” Mr Dantas added. “He is very cool and really pleasant.”

Fox even handed the approval check from Mr Dantas’ mother and father, who have been involved about their son making such an extended journey on a yacht owned by a stranger and requested to see him in particular person.

To borrow an outdated nautical expression, they liked the lower of his spinnaker. They discovered that Fox had taken the Wealthy Harvest to Brazil for refurbishment and needed a succesful crew to move it again to Europe on his behalf.

Along with the rookies Mr. Dantas and Mr. Guerra, there are two others, together with a certified captain.

“I mentioned: ‘Look, be careful for my son,'” recalled Mr. Dantas’s father, João. “He mentioned: ‘Don’t be concerned, I will deal with Rodrigo.'”

Because it seems, his mother and father weren’t the one ones who needed to verify that every one was effectively aboard the Harvest.

Earlier than leaving Brazil, native police spent about six hours looking out the yacht for medication with the assistance of sniffer canine.

Nonetheless, they did not discover what they have been on the lookout for and the sailors thought it was only a routine inspection.

They’d heard tales of cocaine being planted on the ship and now at the very least knew they have been secure.

“Whenever you undergo the airport … your baggage goes via the X-ray machine,” Mr. Dantas mentioned. “So I believed, OK, that is a world journey and they’ll come and examine the ship.”

After they lastly set out on their epic journey on August 4, 2017, these worries have been far behind them, with the Brazilian shoreline slowly receding behind them.

They have been accompanied by an extra crew member, Daniel Dantas (no relation to Rodrigo Dantas), and the yacht’s newly employed captain, 56-year-old Frenchman Olivier Thomas, who changed a A former British captain whose seamanship expertise have been lower than customary.

Fox, in the meantime, flew again to Europe two days in the past.

“It was a gorgeous day, excellent climate and sunshine,” recalled Mr. Guerra, who posted a message thanking Fox on his Fb web page.

It learn: “I am actually grateful, Fox, for giving me this chance to be taught and for our connection to make me stronger. Thanks man.”

After two weeks of crusing, the yacht suffered engine issues, forcing it to dock within the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of West Africa.

As soon as once more, Mr. Guerra and Mr. Dantas discovered causes for optimism. The islands are a vacationer haven and Fox mentioned he sends them cash to get pleasure from whereas restore work is completed on the native marina.

When extra police arrived to look the boat, Mr Guerra was unfazed.

“They discovered nothing in Brazil,” he thought to himself. “They can not discover something in Cape Verde both.”

Cape Verdean police have been extra thorough than their Brazilian counterparts, utilizing specialist chopping tools to open up the yacht’s inside.

Inside, they discovered practically 1.2 tonnes of cocaine below a false floorboard, which might be price an estimated £100 million ($134 million) if offered on the streets of Europe.

“I felt like all my freedom was gone,” Mr. Guerra mentioned. I used to be so deceived.

The crew members went on trial in Cape Verde in March 2018, claiming innocence.

They insist that they had by no means heard of Wealthy Harvest or its homeowners earlier than receiving the job advert.

Nonetheless, they have been each sentenced to 10 years in jail in what was hailed as one of many greatest busts within the nation.

However regardless of the spectacular variety of arrests, the person thought-about a severe crime by Brazilian police escaped.

They imagine the mastermind of the operation was Fox, whose yacht was first delivered to the eye by a tip-off from the UK’s Nationwide Crime Company (NCA).

Brazilian police imagine he was the chief of a drug-smuggling operation.

In August 2018, Fox was arrested in Italy, the place Brazilian police initiated extradition proceedings. They need him to return to Brazil to reply the fees towards him.

However the paperwork got here too late and he was launched – a lot to the dismay of Brazilian police inspector Andre Gonçalves.

He feared Fox then went into hiding.

“We’ve a sense that, after all of the work we have finished, we’re by no means going to resolve it,” he advised the BBC. “It’s totally, very irritating.”

Goncalves mentioned his group carried out surveillance on Fox and the yacht in Brazil. They imagine the “renovations” to the ship have been partly to put in secret compartments on the ship and to load the medication onto the ship earlier than sailors have been employed.

Mr Gonsalves admitted that in the first place he thought 4 sailors have been concerned.

“If somebody is on a ship full of medicine, you’ll suppose that particular person should have one thing to do with it,” he mentioned.

However when he dug into their backgrounds, he could not discover something that beforehand linked them to the drug world or Fox.

“The deeper I’m going, I nonetheless cannot discover a connection … however on the similar time, it strengthens our proof towards Fox.”

The sailors’ plea of ​​not responsible was additionally bolstered by an unlikely supply – fellow Englishman Robert Delbos, an alleged confederate of Fox’s.

Delbos, 71, is a convicted drug supplier who was jailed for 12 years in 1988 for making an attempt to smuggle 1.5 tonnes of hashish into the UK.

Earlier than Wealthy Harvest left Brazil, Mr. Gonsalves’ group noticed Delbos overseeing the primary part of the yacht’s refurbishment.

They initially suspected he was putting in secret compartments and efficiently introduced extradition proceedings towards Fox across the similar time.

Delbos spent months in a Brazilian tremendous jail awaiting trial, however he additionally mentioned the medication have been later grown with out his data.

He was acquitted after the decide within the case dominated that he couldn’t be confirmed to have identified concerning the smuggling scheme.

In an interview with the BBC, he claimed that even drug traffickers had a code of ethics and that Fox had breached it by utilizing harmless sailors as mules as an alternative of hiring skilled smugglers.

“That is fully past me. I imply, you may’t try this,” he mentioned.

“He was a silly and grasping man. As a substitute of paying his crew correctly and getting himself knowledgeable, rattling smuggling crew, he employed 4 harmless folks.”

As doubts grew concerning the sailors’ guilt, their households started a marketing campaign on their behalf that brought on a stir in Brazil.

In 2019, their convictions in Cape Verde have been overturned and so they have been allowed to return house.

Fox, in the meantime, by no means confronted trial and returned to Britain.

The 41-year-old lives in Norwich, in japanese England, the place he grew up, went to school there and is an completed beginner yachtsman – crusing off the close by Norfolk coast.

Immediately he lives in suburban Norwich and runs a property firm.

He belongs to an area enterprise networking affiliation and posted a photograph of himself with then-Mayor James Wright on his social media final March.

There isn’t a suggestion that Mr. Wright was conscious of the allegations towards Fox.

The BBC adopted Fox as he arrived at a Norwich lodge for the Networking Affiliation’s weekly enterprise breakfast assembly.

He declined to touch upon the Harvest and the struggling of the sailors.

Requested concerning the accusation that he was a drug supplier, he responded: “I am not.”

An NCA spokesman mentioned if Brazilian police nonetheless needed to pursue the case, they must file an extradition request.

Brazil’s Ministry of Justice mentioned it doesn’t touch upon particular person instances.

In the meantime, Rodrigo Dantas and Daniel Guerra try to rebuild their lives in Brazil, having given up on their goals of turning into yacht captains.

Mr Dantas mentioned he had issue discovering seafaring work upon his return and a few employers believed he was responsible in spite of everything.

Mr Guerra’s ambition to circumnavigate the globe “has at all times been locked in Cape Verde”.

He mentioned he misplaced the flexibility to belief others, which is essential within the challenges of any long-distance yacht voyage.

Even now, he nonetheless wonders who Fox was – the “cool” Englishman to whom he was so grateful and whose job advert turned his life the other way up.

He mentioned he “actually needs to see justice served” however does not wish to see Fox once more.

“If I see him, it will not be me speaking. It is going to be one other Daniel. All of the unhealthy emotions I had in jail will come out and I will not be capable to be a civilized particular person.”

October is coming The Secret World Season 5: The Seek for Mr. Fox.

a union BBC Africa Eye, BBC Brazil and the Secret World podcast examine a plot to smuggle greater than $100 million price of cocaine into Europe.