Royal Navy seizes over £300million of illegal cargo from smugglers in two historic drug busts

DRUGS worth almost £300million have been seized in two raids by a Royal Navy warship.

The sailors and Marines on HMS Trent — assisted by the US Coast Guard — chased down a speedboat as its crew tried to dump nearly three tons of Class A into the Caribbean Sea.

Four were arrested and it took ten hours to find and collect all the drugs — worth £220.56million.

It came weeks after HMS Trent’s crew seized £70million of cocaine.

The Navy called that a “high-octane chase under moonlight as the smugglers tried to offload their illegal cargo”.

It continued: “As the sun rose, Trent’s 60-strong crew scoured the ocean for the abandoned cargo, eventually retrieving 29 bales of cocaine weighing in at 876kg after an extensive ten-hour search across 24 square miles.”

Of this latest bust, a marine said: “This was a challenging operation and required us to push the boats to their limit.

“Despite their best efforts to evade us, and with our boats and the ship bearing down on them at speed, the 38ft go-fast finally gave up the chase and we were able to get alongside and enable members of the US Coast Guard to seize the vessel.”

The officer in charge of the US Coast Guard team added: “It is one of the largest single seizures in recent memory.

“Being able to recover such a large cargo of contraband over a 24-mile search area is unheard of and speaks to the level of skill the crew of HMS Trent has demonstrated.”