How elite Border Force cops & their trusty dog Flash foiled plot to smuggle £58m-worth of cocaine into Britain

THE moment the 162-metre cargo ship entered British waters, Border Force ­Maritime were poised to make their move.

The vessel was travelling from South America to deliver bananas, but criminal elements among the crew had a different mission.

Under the cover of darkness, they planned to dump 1.5 tonnes of cocaine into the sea, neatly packed with life jackets to keep it afloat.

Waiting in speedboats nearby were accomplices ready to scoop it up and take it to be sold on the streets of Britain, which has the second-highest rate of cocaine use in the world after the US.

But thanks to Border Force Maritime’s coastal patrol vessel Eagle — along with the National Deep Rummage team and a springer spaniel called Flash — the plot was foiled.

The ship was escorted into the port of Dover, where £58million worth of the Class A drug was found concealed in its load.

It made the find, which took place in January, one of the biggest ever seizures in the UK.

‘High-risk work’

In fact, it was more than a quarter of the 4.2 tonnes Border Force Maritime stopped from making it to shore last year.

Amazingly, blundering boatmen had indicated which room the stash was hidden in — by sealing the door with bright red tape.

Once ashore, it did not take long for Flash to sniff it out, his handlers knowing something is up when he sits and stares at an area.

Border Force has the power to arrest suspects and hand them over to cops. Now, those involved are in a British prison awaiting their fate.

Maritime Director Charlie Eastaugh told Flying Eze: “It’s become more usual to see this type of packaging of drugs at sea.

“This consignment was packaged up with buoyancy aids, life jackets, with the intention of it being thrown overboard. It would then have been picked up by a smaller vessel.

“It gives the organised crime gang total control over their supply. They can hand over without ever leaving an evidential trail.

“But we are ahead of the game and work with intelligence partners to intercept and control these packages.

“Thanks to us, that consignment will never make it to UK streets.”;

Six-year-old pooch Flash is currently on trial with the Maritime force.

Part of a new initiative, he mostly stays on land waiting to search ships that dock.

But he has been known to set sail with Border Force vessels, which can spend weeks at sea tracking down illegal loads.

So far, he has detected multiple concealed packages of Class A drugs, including 60kg of cocaine before Christmas.

Also on board vessels are the National Deep Rummage team, who have the dangerous job of squeezing into tight spaces and scaling crates as they search suspect ships.

A senior officer on the team, who cannot be named for security reasons, told Flying Eze: “We’re doing high-risk work that requires a lot of training.

“We all carry a cylinder on our back which gives us 15 minutes of oxygen to get ourselves out of an area. We can’t carry more because of the spaces we work in.

“Everyone has to be trained in basic first aid because our reality is that in the places we work, normal emergency services won’t be able to get to us.

Often you won't see us, but we will see you, and we will seize the harmful commodities

Maritime Director, Charlie Eastaugh

“Seizures like this one Flash discovered prove that we are not putting ourselves in danger for nothing.”;

It is not just hauls within a boat that the team look for. Drugs can be fixed to hulls in the water.

The officer explained: “We had three detections underwater last year, which were in the region of 400kg.

“These can be clamped to the bilge keel on the bottom of a boat, on the outside of the hull with strong magnets, or they can be placed into voids in the vessel that are there to allow seawater to enter the ship as required. You can fit quite a lot into those areas.”;

Diving under the hold of a 300m cargo ship is another incredibly dangerous job — and one that often requires specialist assistance from police divers.

Charlie said: “The rummage teams are world-leading experts in deep searches into vessels, and quite often they will put themselves through confined, dark, dangerous places in order to find any kind of commodity that’s been smuggled.

“In recent years, this has been cocaine, but we have also seen seizures of all sorts of harmful commodities, including firearms.

“I’m proud of the work that everyone in Border Force Maritime Directorate carries out, from the crews on board to the National Deep Rummage team and to those working in the general maritime domain.

Often the work they do goes on unseen and at night. It’s in a hostile environment, in really difficult conditions. It’s really important for the public to know that we are patrolling the UK, day and night.”;

The team has five coastal patrol vessels and five cutters. Intelligence from partner agencies is used to identify vessels that could be carrying illegal goods, and crews also use their own experience to help spot things that look suspicious.

In the past two years, the Maritime directorate has challenged 11,000 vessels to check how they respond, boarded more than 700 of them and searched 500.

On 55 occasions, the National Deep Rummage team found illegal items, including Class A drugs along with firearms and contraband cigarettes.

The Maritime teams also rely on help from members of the public, essentially acting as field intelligence officers.

Charlie said: “Everyone has a role to play in safeguarding the UK from this illicit activity.

“If you see something that looks suspicious — if you see something that from your understanding of that community seems off — call Crimestoppers.

“You can report it to the police, too, and we will have a look into what’s going on in that community.

“There have been numerous occasions where something that a member of the public has reported has led to an investigation, or it’s led to a boarding.

“Last year alone, we seized four and a half tons of cocaine, which is worth hundreds of millions of pounds of street value.”;

In the last five years, Border Force Maritime has detected 99 different loads of illegal drugs, 17 tonnes of which has been cocaine.

In 2024, they seized 4.2 tonnes of cocaine, and in 2023 confiscated 5.8 tonnes. Much of it comes in on ships carrying legitimate cargos, such as bananas from South America.

In a warning to criminals, Charlie added: “We’ve shown from recent jobs, including the one we’ve talked about in Dover in January, that we are one step ahead.

“We know the type of routes that are being taken. We understand this domain — we are patrolling 24/7 around the UK.

“Often you won’t see us, but we will see you, and we will seize the harmful commodities that are pervading the UK border.

“And we will continue to work day and night to keep the public safe.”;