Colombian man jailed in UK cocaine-smuggling plot involving small boat
Didier Reyes, 40, acted as a go-between with Colombian cartels; 524kg of cocaine were found in a rental van, tying him to a wider scheme that used a RHIB to move drugs toward the UK.
A Colombian man has been jailed for 13-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine in connection with a plot to bring £42 million worth of cocaine into the United Kingdom on a small boat. Didier Reyes, 40, was arrested in Lelley, East Yorkshire, in May 2024 by National Crime Agency officers who discovered 524kg of drugs hidden inside a rental van parked outside a pub.
Reyes acted as a contact for Colombian drug cartels and joined co-conspirator Mark Moran, 24, of Argyll and Bute in Scotland, in sailing a rigid-hulled inflatable boat from the Hessle slipway hours later, returning to shore with the drugs on board. The stash was then unloaded at a beach near a caravan park in nearby Easington. Fellow gang member Daniel Livingstone, 25, also of Argyll and Bute, waited on the shore, shining a torch out to sea and conducting conversations on his mobile phone as the operation unfolded. National Crime Agency officers spotted Reyes and Moran dropping bags off the boat onto the beach before the drugs were transferred into a van and driven away.
All three were staying in Lelley when they were arrested last year after investigators tracked Moran and another man purchasing a VW Touareg with a tow bar in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. They drove the vehicle to Humber RIBS in Hull where they bought a boat that would be used in the smuggling mission. Livingstone was also spotted pouring fuel into two large jerry cans on the same day the drugs were dropped off on the beach.
When Reyes was arrested, his clothes were wet enough that he had to change into a forensic white suit before being driven away. NCA Senior Investigating Officer Alan French said Reyes was an integral part of the smuggling operation, acting as a go-between with drug cartel bosses in Colombia. Without his input, the cocaine would never have reached Moran and Livingstone. The stash was eventually unloaded at a beach near the caravan park in Easington.
Moran, who was convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine by Hull Crown Court after a jury found him guilty on October 28 of the previous year, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on December 23. Livingstone pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine in June last year and received seven years and nine months in prison. Prosecutors noted that the plot would have flooded UK streets with class A drugs had it not been halted by a close collaboration between the National Crime Agency, Humberside Police and Border Force, which disrupted the operation and left the organised crime groups out of pocket.