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Fisher who met king jailed over plot to smuggle £18m of cocaine into UK
The Guardian
|August 22, 2025
A respected fisher who met King Charles and government representatives to discuss the future of the industry has been jailed for taking part in a sophisticated plot to smuggle £18m of cocaine into the UK.
Peter Williams, 44, was sentenced to 16 years and nine months for captaining a boat that went out to pick up cocaine dropped into the sea off Cornwall by a "mother ship" transporting the drugs from South America.
Truro crown court was told that Williams, from Havant, Hampshire, had been an upstanding member of his local community but after falling on hard times developed a drug habit and accrued a large debt.
He was recruited by his drug dealers to skipper the rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) for the drug operation in September last year but it went wrong when it was spotted by a UK Border Force cutter.
The fisher led border force officers on a 28-mile chase, which ended on Gwynver beach near Land's End, when Williams ran the RHIB aground.
This story is from the August 22, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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