Two men who smuggled half a tonne of cocaine into UK jailed
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Men caught after being spotted shining torch out to sea while smuggling 524kg of cocaine on an inflatable boat. Two men have been jailed after being caught smuggling half a tonne of cocaine into the UK on a small boat. Mark Moran and Daniel Livingstone were sentenced this week to a combined total of nearly 23 years in prison, after 524kg of cocaine were found on 4 May in a hire van outside a hotel where they had stayed in Lelley, East Yorkshire, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
![[The National Crime Agency seized 524kg of cocaine]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/23/22/newFile.jpg)
Moran and Colombian national Didier Tordecilla Reyes had sailed a rigid-hulled inflatable boat from the Hessle slipway, near Hull, before returning hours later with the drugs – said by the NCA to have a street value of £42m – and unloading them at a beach 20 miles along the coast, near Easington caravan park.
![[Mark Moran, Daniel Livingstone and Didier Tordecilla Reyes have each been convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/23/21/newFile.jpg)
Livingstone, aged 25, had been spotted shining a torch out to sea and talking on his mobile phone as he waited for Moran and Reyes, who were seen unloading a number of bags into the van and ditching the boat on the beach. Earlier that day, Moran had driven a hire van and the boat from Norwich to Grimsby where he met Livingstone and Reyes. They all drove on to Hessle and Livingstone filled two large jerry cans with fuel.
But officers discovered the illict cargo in Livingstone’s van when they arrested him on 4 May after he spent the night at a hotel in nearby Lelley along with Moran and Reyes. On Monday, Moran – a 23-year-old from Ardrishaig in Argyll and Bute – was sentenced at Hull Crown Court on Monday to 15 years in jail for conspiracy to import cocaine, after being convicted by a jury in October following an eight-day trial.
