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00:12There was a rumour going round Newport that someone local must have been involved.
00:18It was like, why are these people here in Pembrokeshire?
00:20Is there some kind of local inside person helping them out?
00:24Is there someone in Newport kind of guiding them?
00:28I mean, who would know where to have that cave?
00:40Jim, Jim, open up.
00:46Yeah, they woke me up one morning in my caravan and I was surprised.
00:52I thought I'd got away with that.
00:54He thought that we knew everything.
00:58And you couldn't stop him talking.
01:01I'm not used to or wasn't used to dealing with police.
01:05I don't think I had a plan, to be honest.
01:08So they just piled it on and frightened me then.
01:13It was the best state that I've seen in the whole of my service.
01:18Massive.
01:18It puts the whole story together, basically.
01:25In the 1980s, a strange discovery disturbed a small fishing town in West Wales.
01:34When locals joined forces with the police to solve the mystery, they stumbled onto something far bigger than anyone could
01:41have imagined.
01:45It was a really extraordinary case with extraordinary characters.
01:49It was like a Hollywood blockbuster unveiling in front of our eyes.
01:52People couldn't believe it.
01:55The investigation that followed was to be the rural detective's biggest ever case.
02:03I would say he's one of the biggest drug dealers in the world.
02:07A world of luxury yachts, supercars, mansions with buried treasure and master criminals.
02:14The rewards for what they were doing was massive.
02:18He was an expert at disguise.
02:20Danish journalists called him the man with the rubber face.
02:25Told by those who lived it, this is the true story of how a tight-knit Welsh community
02:30helped uncover one of the most audacious criminal operations Britain has ever seen.
02:37A lot of people would say, it didn't happen.
02:40Yeah, it happened all right.
02:42All of it.
02:43This is Cannabis Cove, Operation Seal Bay.
02:53Last episode, Welsh police were sure they'd intercepted a gang of drug traffickers in the middle of a huge smuggle.
03:01It was like something from a film.
03:03We were on the beach, we could hear the sea, and looking down here, and we've got this room.
03:06Incredible.
03:07It was there for a purpose to contain large consignment of drugs.
03:13Helped by the vigilant people of the small fishing town of Newport.
03:17Dad, could he be suspicious?
03:19Who wears a safari suit in West Wales?
03:22The police investigation has led to the discovery of a treasure trove of evidence and the arrests of two suspected
03:30international drug smugglers.
03:32Robin was almost like an archetypal gentleman smuggler.
03:36He was using 17 false names and addresses.
03:47I would say he's one of the biggest drug dealers in the world.
03:51But with the suspects arrested before the mothership could make its drop of cannabis, the detectives used the gang's marine
03:58radio to try and make contact.
04:02This is mother.
04:03This is mother.
04:04This is mother.
04:05I want to come in and get this dirt off my hands.
04:08This is mother.
04:14This is mother.
04:15This is mother.
04:15This is mother.
04:15If you said the wrong word, it would have blown it.
04:18By saying that thing, I thought, well, we'll just wait and see what's going to happen.
04:30And they would have expected then, we thought, a reply to say, right, we're ready.
04:35We'll meet you.
04:42Unfortunately, the police didn't know what the reply should be.
04:46They had either not asked the Dane or had not told them.
04:50This is mother.
04:52I want to come in and get this dirt off my hands.
04:55We didn't have a helicopter.
04:57We didn't have any marine capability.
05:00The only capability that we had through customs was through their own cutters.
05:05Well, one was up in Scotland, which was too far away, and the other one was down in Cornwall, and
05:10that had broken down.
05:11So really, we were, our hands were tied behind our back, really.
05:20Without a reply, the radio eventually fell silent.
05:26Had the police just missed the chance of tracking down the mothership with its cargo of cannabis?
05:32And without any drugs seized, did they even have a case?
05:38But then, an extraordinary coincidence blew the investigation wide open.
05:51My name's Gerry Ormsby.
05:54In 1983, I was a detective constable targeting serious and organised crime and travelling criminals.
06:02I just happened to be in the office, and Robin Boswell came into the conversation.
06:08My ears pricked up, obviously, straight away.
06:12I went over and spoke to the officer, and he told me that Robin Boswell and a number of other
06:18individuals had been arrested in Wales, suspected of drug importation.
06:26By pure chance, Gerry had been following two suspected drug smugglers, one of whom was a woman called Susan Boswell,
06:34the ex-wife of Robin Boswell.
06:37The man in custody in a Fishguard jail, who police believed to be the smuggling operation's boss.
06:45Gerry arranged to meet the Welsh detectives, and it turned out that Boswell connection wasn't the only coincidence.
06:53At one point, the officers mentioned a guy that they described as Safari Joe, a middle-aged man driving a
07:03white Rolls Royce and wearing, like, safari jackets.
07:07The crime squad came down and showed us a photograph of Donald Henry Holmes, and what was he wearing? A
07:13safari suit.
07:14And we thought, that's it, that's Safari Joe.
07:16Basically, this guy's your nickname, Safari Joe, is our main target, a guy called Donald Holmes.
07:24The English crime squad had been following this man for weeks.
07:29He was referred to us as being a cocaine importer, and that is why we set up an operation to
07:37gather intelligence on him in the first place.
07:43The intelligence gathered showed Donald and Susan Boswell had been living together for months in a flat in London.
07:51It was her home, and it appeared that Donald Henry Holmes was actually living there with her.
07:58We think that they were lovers.
08:01So, it was looking interesting.
08:05Here we had information about Donald Holmes involved in cocaine importation.
08:11He's living with the former wife of a known drug smuggler, Robin Boswell.
08:17The surveillance also revealed the pair enjoyed a life of luxury.
08:25Susan was, she was a very smart, attractive lady, very assured of herself.
08:31She was using a Porsche, a red Porsche.
08:36He was a very sophisticated man, who ran about a Rolls Royce.
08:44He spent quite a bit of money, so we knew he was getting his money from somewhere.
08:50He would appear later in the morning, and the two of them would drive off in the Rolls and mooch
08:58around London,
08:59having lunch in smart restaurants, and generally having a very pleasant time together.
09:06Well, we found out that Holmes had no apparent employment at all.
09:10Wherever we looked, the trappings of wealth were evident.
09:18So, we asked John Rhys and his team to carry on and keep observations and see what they could get
09:27for us.
09:29And it wasn't long before Donald was seen taking a suspicious package into a bank.
09:36In the bank, Donald had a safe deposit box in his name.
09:41He managed to get a warrant and open that box, and we found cocaine in there to the value of
09:47about £30,000.
09:49I think that was actually the first amount of drugs that was found in this particular case.
09:59The pair were arrested and brought back to Wales for questioning.
10:08Donald Henry Holmes made out that we were totally wrong in what we were suspecting of him.
10:14Nothing to do with him.
10:16Susan Boswell, she was much the same, denying anything and wasn't prepared to help or admit to her a great
10:24deal.
10:26Donald claimed the cocaine was for personal use.
10:29And although he had been in West Wales, it was only to meet Robin's ex-wife.
10:35But when police examined Donald's leather shoulder bag, a different story emerged.
10:42Lovely shoulder bag, brand new, brown leather, shiny.
10:45And I felt the front panel, and then I felt the back panel, and the back panel was thicker.
10:51It was suspicious.
10:53You could see that there was some sort of pocket there.
10:56But my hand in, I withdrew loads of documents and photographs.
11:01All sorts of activities within these photographs.
11:06I won't go into any further detail.
11:11Pornographic photographs of him with young women, and there was clear evidence of cocaine present.
11:18Well, he was obviously fond of taking photos of this type of photograph,
11:25because there were quite a few of them, including himself, looking very proud of himself.
11:33But it wasn't the photographs in which the police were interested.
11:37There was also a telegram.
11:40Obviously, instructions for somebody.
11:43It says, as explained, we will call this guy as soon as you know your flight plans, then he will
11:49be expecting you.
11:50Then there's a name, Muhammad Ali Jafar, and Baalbek.
11:53This is in Lebanon.
12:01So the telegram that was found in his bag obviously shows a link to a large clan in Lebanon called
12:11the Jafars.
12:14Now, in the drug dealing world, the Jafars were infamous.
12:19This was a extended Shiite family, about 5,000 strong, based in the Bekar Valley, which was the home of
12:28the Lebanese cannabis trade.
12:31And at that time, cannabis was Lebanon's biggest export, albeit an illicit export.
12:37There's indications that they'd started exporting seriously to the UK markets, certainly from the early 70s onwards.
12:44So I would suggest that Holmes' communications with them is illustrative of the level at which these guys were operating.
12:54You know, these were the guys you would go to if you wanted to buy tonnes.
13:02The telegram led the detectives to believe Donald Holmes could be the smuggling operation's international contact man.
13:12You know, Donald was clearly very much involved in the world of drug smuggling with some serious players, if I
13:19can put it that way,
13:20and reinforced our view that he was very much a central part of this operation in Wales.
13:29One of these invaluable middlemen who, you know, isn't phased by a Mr. Fix-It, but an international Mr. Fix
13:37-It.
13:39I saw Donald Holmes as the, like, the chairman of the board.
13:43A guy that's been there, done it all, lots of connections.
13:49Directing operations, but not really getting his hands too dirty at the front end.
13:57The leather bag's hidden compartment had one final secret to give up.
14:01A diary that described a voyage from Morocco to the Bahamas, smuggling cannabis on a yacht.
14:09It's about four tonnes, valued about four million pounds.
14:12This is a full account of the actual trip, which involved Robin Boswell, Susan Boswell and others.
14:23It reads almost like a film script that everything that could go wrong did go wrong, you know, huge high
14:28seas, sickness, bits of the boat breaking and falling off.
14:32And, you know, when you read it, you wonder how any of them actually survived the journey and there were
14:37times where they didn't think they would.
14:41It was a major discovery.
14:43Donald's bag contained a telegram from a known major cannabis supplier and a diary that clearly detailed both Robin and
14:51Susan Boswell on a drug smuggling sea voyage.
14:55Why he had such damning evidence in his bag is a mystery.
14:59It was an elementary mistake by Holmes.
15:04Suddenly it was dawning on him that he was in, like, serious trouble and that his whole world was crashing
15:12down around his ears.
15:15More and more information was coming to light to show the extent of these guys, their worldwide operation.
15:22We could see that there clearly was close connections between them all, particularly between Robin Boswell, Susan Goff and Holmes.
15:36Donald Holmes was kept in custody, but due to insufficient evidence, Susan was released under caution.
15:44She returned to her country mansion in Hampshire, where Robin also used to live, before they separated.
15:51Because she was allowed bail, she went back to Dulee and the nanny, in the night, she could hear somebody
16:00digging in the garden.
16:02So she informed the gardener who came in in the morning and he thought, well, that's strange, he said,
16:07because whenever Robin Boswell came down to visit the family, he also was digging in the garden and then putting
16:13the soil back again.
16:14So, in fairness to them, they told the police.
16:20We acted upon that very quickly and found a couple of galvanised tanks being buried in the garden with bolted
16:30lids.
16:33We opened both of them.
16:35In the tanks were documentation, a block of cannabis and various items.
16:41It was absolute gold dust.
16:45There were also details of a Swiss bank account and a distribution list of 100 kilograms of cannabis.
16:52It was quite amazing, but after hearing about this great big room that he had dug underneath the beach,
17:00it was hardly surprising that he was digging smaller holes in his own garden.
17:06But most intriguing of all were the deeds to another property.
17:10And that's when they discovered a second and much bigger mansion in Surrey.
17:22Well, it was tucked away in an area of natural beauty in Surrey.
17:28Very few neighbours in close proximity, away from prying eyes.
17:38Immediately, the impression was it was a very valuable property worth a lot of money.
17:47When we got to the house, we found it was completely empty.
17:51There was no bedding, no furniture or anything.
17:56We were amazed at the size and the extent of the grounds and the outbuildings.
18:02We could see straight away that there was paraphernalia related to what would have been going on down in Wales.
18:09We couldn't believe what we'd found, to be honest.
18:12Police found more tanks at Boswell's quarter of a million pounds mansion in the Surrey countryside.
18:17They believe those tanks too were meant to be sunk into Welsh beaches as storing places for drugs smuggled into
18:24the country.
18:25There were vehicles, there was boating equipment, engines, outboard motors, marine radio equipment.
18:34And it was just a gold mine of evidence to connect this address to the investigation at Fishguard.
18:47It was quite clear that this was going to be used on a long term basis.
18:53This was going to be their headquarters for a massive project throughout the future years.
19:01They did things with purpose, this organisation.
19:05If you just look at it logically, this was going to be the start of a whole series of potentially
19:13extremely lucrative smuggles
19:16that would have made people who were already millionaires multi-millionaires.
19:26Rearrested and now under pressure, Susan gave up new information under questioning.
19:31The location of a sailing yacht she claimed Robin had used for smuggling.
19:38They actually found the boat, which was in dry dock, I think down in the Hamble somewhere.
19:45Robin Boswell is said to have paid nearly £60,000 for a boat called the Escapade of Tor Bay.
19:52The boat had been purchased by Boswell under one of his assumed names.
19:57That transaction was made from a telephone kiosk and involved eight different bank accounts.
20:02Police suspected it of being a vital part in the smuggling operation.
20:07They searched it and found secret compartments and powerful radio equipment.
20:12Police later found the boat had been modified with radar, three extra fuel tanks,
20:18had a compartment for possible drug storage and a quantity of cannabis was found aboard.
20:27Susan claimed the boat was used on a smuggling trip to Morocco
20:31and that one of the crew members was a fair-haired Welshman called Jim.
20:38Over the next few weeks, the detectives scoured their filing system for local men fitting Susan's description.
20:46One of the potential matches lived in a caravan in a remote part of Pembrokeshire.
20:56He must have been waiting and waiting for the police to come to see him.
21:02Initially, he's very, very cautious.
21:06Having searched the caravan, they found small amounts of cannabis, etc.
21:10He found also a connection with a car which was registered in the name of one of Boswell's false names.
21:19So that again was another connection to him.
21:22So he's arrested and he's taken to Fisgard Police Station where we interview him at depth.
21:32I don't know exactly how they got to me.
21:35I was surprised, I thought I got away with that.
21:38I don't think I had a plan to be honest.
21:41So they just piled it on and frightened me then.
21:44I wasn't used to dealing with police, like.
21:50And you couldn't stop him talking.
21:52He thought that we knew everything.
21:57And it was the best statement I've seen in the whole of my service.
22:04Over the next 36 hours, Jim delivered a 50-page statement.
22:09One that would expose the truth behind the smuggle.
22:19This is the first time Jim's agreed to talk on television.
22:22But he wants to remain anonymous.
22:25So we've changed his name, altered his voice and he's played on screen by an actor.
22:31But he's from Pembrokeshire and this was where he met Robin Boswell,
22:35back in the late 1970s, through their mutual friend Ken Dewar.
22:40Robin was quite a mysterious guy.
22:43Quite a serious bloke.
22:44I heard stories about his sailing and smuggling with boats and all sorts of things like that.
22:53He was a really brave guy.
22:56He was something like from comic book, really.
23:02Jim told the detectives he'd been working for Robin as a mechanic for several years.
23:07Adapting cars for smuggling and fixing boat engines.
23:12Never knew what was going to happen next, really.
23:15I might not see him for ages and then he could turn up and he'd say,
23:19I've got a job for you, pick me up and off we go.
23:24After a while I realised that he was really like a pirate or an adventurer of some kind.
23:31And I connected with that, really.
23:40It was that sense of adventure that saw him accept an invitation from Robin to join him on a sailing
23:45trip,
23:46from Morocco to the UK.
23:49According to Jim, it turned out to be a smuggle.
23:53We did actually pick some cannabis up off Morocco.
23:56A troller came out with it in sacks.
23:59They must have been in radio contact with it.
24:03They pulled up alongside and threw the sacks of it across.
24:10We went through a storm in the Mediterranean and that was severe weather.
24:16Quite frightening, actually.
24:17Because my bump was on the front of the boat and my head was up against the hull of the
24:22boat when I was sleeping.
24:23And the weather was so bad, you could feel the fiberglass bending in, you know, with the waves and stuff.
24:30It makes you think, like, the boat could have sunk there and we'd all be gone and nobody would know
24:35where the hell we were or anything.
24:39Those were the kind of risks that these crews took and there would be quite a few of those crews
24:44sitting at the bottom of the ocean now that, you know, nobody's ever heard of since and nobody knows what
24:50happened to.
24:51So they took extraordinary risks but then the rewards were huge.
24:57But Jim claims this smuggling trip was a success and the yacht made it to its final destination, Wales.
25:05This coast sort of lent itself to it, smuggling and stuff.
25:11To hit the coast of Wales is quite easy, you know.
25:18Sometime later in the summer of 1983, Jim says Robin met him to talk about another job.
25:24A job which also turned out to be in Wales.
25:29He arrived at my caravan one night and said, I've got some work for you.
25:33And the next day we went to like a farm place, really nice place in Hampshire or somewhere like that.
25:41And I had a look round and I could see he had a couple of land rovers there and inflatable
25:48boats and boat engines and all sorts of stuff.
25:52And he said, I want you to get it all running and everything.
25:58Jim told the detectives he and Robin eventually transported all the equipment to West Wales and sailed it to a
26:05remote cove.
26:10He went up the beach and he started moving pebbles from the side of where the rocks were.
26:16I was really puzzled. I thought, has he gone mad or something? You know, what's he doing?
26:20And then a hatchery became visible, a boat hatchery. I couldn't believe this.
26:28And then he opened the hatch and he shone a torch down and he said, go and have a look.
26:36Stunning. There was a whole cave they'd made below the pebbles on the beach.
26:42It was here at the underground chamber that Robin told Jim of the smuggling plan for the first time.
26:50The big boat would go out quickly, pick up their load of cannabis and get back in with it quickly.
26:57And then you'd need a few guys to unload it into that cave, you know.
27:03A lot of people were trying to smuggle cannabis in them days and a major problem was landing it.
27:11What you've just heard from Jim was pretty much what he told the police in the Fishguard Station interview room.
27:19He understood from Boswell that it was to have been three and a half ton of cannabis was to come
27:25in on a boat called the Mother Goose.
27:29This is Mother. This is Mother.
27:31The message would come through, can I come in and get the dirt off my hands?
27:34And they'd go out to meet the mothership and then they'd bring the cannabis onto the beach and load the
27:43cannabis into that cavern.
27:47And like a normal landing where you would land the stuff on a beach and then you'd have to disperse
27:52it as quickly as possible.
27:53Because of the concealment they could actually stash it there and they would only need to move, say, 250 kilos,
28:00500 kilos at a time.
28:02And the rest they could safely leave there. As long as it wasn't discovered, it was as safe there as
28:06anywhere else.
28:10The police couldn't believe their luck. A confession that confirmed a smuggle was underway and exactly how it would have
28:18happened.
28:19Elation. It just added to the whole story.
28:23We were all obviously delighted.
28:26Massive. It put the whole story together, basically.
28:31They were actually engaged in smuggling and that was their sole purpose.
28:36You know, we'd suspected everything but this was factual evidence.
28:40It was going to be a major drugs operation, the biggest the country had seen.
28:48Jim finished his marathon 36 hour long interview by telling the detectives the last time he saw Robin was when
28:56he left him on the beach, guarding all the kit.
29:00He didn't tell me how long I was going to be there.
29:02He gave me some water and dried food, you know, and a roll of toilet paper.
29:07Like, I thought, shit, how long am I going to be here? Like, you know, there's nothing here.
29:12And I've got to hide all the time in the daytime as well. I can't be seen on the beach
29:17to attract attention, you know.
29:19I could have been there maybe for a couple of days before whoever it was spotted something on the beach
29:26and turned up in an inflatable.
29:30And as we were preparing to land, a man suddenly appeared from behind a rock over here.
29:35And he hurried down to the beach and we got the impression that he didn't want us to land somehow.
29:42A strange feeling one had.
29:44Well, he said, I can't tell you very much because we're on a secret operation.
29:49I said, well, that sounds interesting.
29:51And I could see that one of them for sure didn't believe me at all.
29:57I watched them go off and I thought, they're going to be back shortly, probably with the police.
30:03And I'm going to be stuck here with this story and all this equipment, which is unexplainable.
30:09And I thought, I've got to get away from here.
30:12Like, there was no path to that beach.
30:16It was like boat access only.
30:18But I did climb the cliffs and got up onto the coast path.
30:23And that was horrendous for me because I hate heights.
30:28Went home to my caravan.
30:31Just waited to see what would happen.
30:34Next time I saw everybody was in prison.
30:44There were now multiple suspects in custody.
30:47There was a wealth of evidence and a confession that admitted tons of cannabis was going to be smuggled via
30:54a yacht into a secret underground chamber on a beach in West Wales.
31:00All of which was enough to get the case sent to trial.
31:05Today, magistrates here at Swansea have been asked to commit for trial seven people accused of conspiring to illegally import
31:12into Dovid controlled drugs in June this year.
31:19However, there was a problem.
31:21The great flaw in the police investigation, of course, into this supposedly major drug smuggling operation was that there were
31:29no drugs.
31:30So, where were they?
31:36Fortunately for the chief inspectors, the discovery of Boswell's mansions provided a new line of inquiry.
31:43Having recovered a lot of documents and buried in the tanks in the garden, we got an indication that Boswell
31:53had dealings with an accountant in the Isle of Man.
32:00When the detectives met the accountant, he told them Boswell had several shelf companies registered on the island, as well
32:08as a bank account with three quarters of a million pounds deposited in cash.
32:13I said to the manager, I said, are you telling us that you accepted £757,000 from one individual, not
32:23asked any questions about it?
32:25And he's just read as a bit to this manager now, and he says, well, yes, it's not unusual for
32:31people to come in with a plastic bag with £50,000. It's not unusual, is it?
32:36Back in the 1980s, the Isle of Man was known as an offshore haven for criminals' finances.
32:43The serious money laundering legislation didn't really come in until the late 1980s, partly as a response to the huge
32:50flows of illicit cash that the drug trade was causing.
32:53So it was a pretty good time. The late 70s and early 80s was a pretty good time to be
32:59a cannabis smuggler, really.
33:01To the ordinary man in the street, and I'm thinking of the jury at the end of it, it started
33:06to paint a picture of a person who had undoubtedly been involved in drug trafficking.
33:16However, they were still missing the actual drugs.
33:21And with the court case looming, time was running out.
33:27But then, something odd happened.
33:30Just when we thought that the story could not become more bizarre, we heard that a so-called American narcotics
33:38agent had visited Donald Holmes in Swansea Prison.
33:43Subsequent inquiries with the various agencies had no record of this individual, so we had no idea who this chap
33:52was or what he was doing.
33:56But he wasn't an agent at all. He was a fake and an accomplice of Holmes, and he was there
34:01to try and discuss how they could sell the drugs that hadn't come ashore in Seal Bay.
34:11I mean, it seems that the police and maybe the prison authorities at that time, they weren't quite alert to
34:17how outrageous the actions of some of these gangs were.
34:21I mean, they really were risk-takers, and they really didn't care about the rules.
34:28Fortunately, a police informant identified the man and claimed he knew who he was and what he was up to.
34:38Eventually, we discovered that this man was due to go to Mallorca to sell the cargo of Seal Bay cannabis
34:47to sell it on to somebody else so that the proceeds of that could be used to pay the defence
34:54of the people that were in custody in Wales.
34:59So, a team was dispatched to Mallorca. Could the drug-laden yacht be moored there?
35:06We started searching the marinas, and there were hundreds of them.
35:15No sign of the boat.
35:18The trail of the missing cannabis went cold.
35:21The police had to accept it would never be found.
35:25This was now a drug smuggling case without any drugs.
35:29The prosecution team had a major task on their hands.
35:37Almost a year after Robin Boswell was first arrested in Newport, the Operation Seal Bay trial began at Swansea's Crown
35:46Court.
35:48In come the lawyers, police and court officials at the start of what looks set to become a marathon trial
35:55here at Swansea Crown Court.
35:58The first day of the trial, it was buzzing, basically.
36:02With them, a mountain of paperwork, files and legal paraphernalia.
36:08It clearly grabbed the attention of the public as a thoroughly exciting story of clandestine meetings, fast cars, big property,
36:19boats with cannabis, underground caverns.
36:23These greedy schemes were brought to light because of that factor, the interest and curiosity shown by decent people living
36:30in the far west of Wales.
36:33We waited outside the court and we could see the vans going in and everybody, all the press, rushing to
36:41take photographs.
36:44It was a really, really big court case. It was like a Hollywood blockbuster unveiling in front of our eyes.
36:51For the local people to be seeing all of this appearing on the evening news, to be on news at
36:56ten, was a really big deal.
37:00The first evidence is expected to be heard tomorrow, after the jury was sworn in late this afternoon.
37:05The case should take at least a month.
37:10We knew that we were up against...
37:12Defence QC was Michael Mansfield, an imposing figure who then went on to make a name for himself in miscarriage
37:21of justice cases like the Birmingham Six, the Guilford Four and the Cardiff Five.
37:29It's obvious that the people in the dark had thrown a lot of money at this.
37:33They were determined to prove that the police had got it wrong and that this was a miscarriage of justice.
37:40The courts took a pretty dim view of any kind of trafficking.
37:45If you were doing it on a very large scale and making huge profits, it was regarded as a very
37:52serious crime.
37:54I've changed my mind since, but at that time I was in favour of legalising cannabis, because given the other
38:02substances that society adhere to, alcohol, tea, coffee, you name it, that it was in that category, it wasn't causing
38:10that amount of damage at all, and that it was a recreational use in a sense, and therefore should be
38:18legalised.
38:18At least possession should be legalised.
38:22Mansfield's plan was to expose the huge hole in the prosecution's case.
38:27We were still wary of the fact that we didn't have any big consignment of drugs.
38:34A lot of it was circumstantial evidence, etc.
38:39We knew we had a big task on our hands.
38:42Digging a hole in the beach isn't an offence.
38:45It all came down to motive.
38:48We had all this evidence, but there was no drugs.
38:53So it was basically down to Gareth Williams to convince the jury that it definitely was drugs.
39:03The late Gareth Williams was the prosecution's lead barrister.
39:07He would later go on to become leader of the House of Lords.
39:11But back in 1984, he'd been a QC for six years.
39:17Gareth was by then a very successful Queen's Council.
39:21But our main concern, obviously, was going to be whether what we did have, by way of evidence, through the
39:29police work over those ten months,
39:31to lead to the inference that we wanted the jury to draw.
39:39But before the two QCs can battle it out, on the very first day of the trial, there was a
39:46surprise.
39:47Three of the defendants have now changed their plea to guilty to that main charge.
39:52They are Kenneth Dewar, together with 40-year-old Susan Boswell.
39:55She has also pleaded guilty to intending to pervert the course of justice by hiding evidence.
40:01Due to the laws at the time, this meant none of the evidence from their police interviews could be used.
40:08Welsh mechanic Jim also pleaded guilty.
40:11So, his statement, in which he laid out the entire smuggling plan, couldn't be used either.
40:19If he had been able to give evidence, and would have been willing to do so,
40:23that would have been extremely valuable because he implicated a number of people,
40:29including the three defendants who were still in the dock by then, the three who were facing trial.
40:35It was a major blow for the prosecution, but they were still confident.
40:44Over the next few weeks, they bid to the jury the wealth of incriminating evidence they'd collated.
40:50Police found expensive marine equipment and a radio transceiver.
40:55But the most sensational discovery of all was an underground chamber,
41:00where literally tons of drugs could be stored and hidden.
41:04And from the many locals who made witness statements, some of them were brought to the stand to give evidence.
41:10Hundreds of people remembered the characters, dozens in sufficient detail, for a good prosecution case.
41:16What stands out to me was the quality of the evidence in the court given by the local people.
41:21Genuine, hard-working, you know, you couldn't have had better people.
41:24And of course, they never challenged any of that evidence, because really, they realised how dangerous it was.
41:31These people came across as extremely honest, with a sense of public duty.
41:37Completely closed in. There's no way he could get down.
41:40The prosecution's case was going well, and it was about to get better,
41:45as the three remaining defendants prepared to be cross-examined.
41:54Up first was Donald Holmes.
41:56He was asked about the £30,000 worth of cocaine found in his bank safety deposit box.
42:05He downplayed that by saying he'd only paid £3,000 for it, and that it was for his own use.
42:13He was also questioned about the telegram from a known arms and drug dealer in Lebanon.
42:18His cross-examination about the letter was brutal and forensic, and drove him into a corner in the court.
42:28I think he was weeping a couple of times there.
42:31He appeared distressed, whether it was genuine or not, I don't know.
42:35He just couldn't explain it.
42:37In the end, he said that he was delivering it to someone else, but he didn't realise the significance of
42:44the letter.
42:46Soren Berg-Arnbach refused to give evidence.
42:50So up next was Robin Boswell.
42:55After four long weeks of seemingly incriminating evidence, the odds appeared stacked against him.
43:04Now it was his turn to put forward his defence.
43:08Very calm.
43:11Very self-assured.
43:13Arrogant.
43:15I think he thought that we didn't stand a hope in hell of convicting him.
43:20And that he would outfox us, out to manoeuvre us in every way.
43:26At that time, you had no idea what the nature of any defence was going to be.
43:31There was no obligation on the defence to serve what became known as a defence case statement.
43:38Setting out the essentials of their case.
43:40It was a mystery.
43:47The room was hushed as Boswell said that the operation had been a secret salvage attempt, and not a move
43:53to smuggle drugs into the country.
43:57Boswell has been trying to convince the jury here at Swansea that last summer's strange events on the Pembrokeshire coast
44:03weren't about drug smuggling, but a secret plan to try to find a U-boat which had been laden with
44:09gold belonging to Hitler's deputy, Martin Bormann.
44:12He said that there was a substantial amount of gold on board, Nazi gold.
44:19I must say, I thought, how has he developed such a story as this?
44:26Yes, we were there. We did have all this equipment.
44:30But it was nothing to do with drugs.
44:32We had this equipment with a view to an expedition.
44:36I think he said it was to somewhere about 10 to 15 miles off Strumbull Head.
44:43One part of their story was accurate. Several U-boats had been sunk in the Irish Sea as the war
44:49drew to its close in 1945.
44:52Some of them could have been carrying gold. They named U-boat 235.
45:01Our case was we were looking for something which actually existed, which was U-boats were sunk in the Irish
45:08Sea.
45:09The claim was that they would locate the wreck and then there'd be a diving operation to lift what they
45:18expected to be the gold bullion.
45:19We found a historian who was able to verify these things and we had various nautical maps to show where
45:28they were sunk.
45:30According to Boswell, it was so secret that he was the only one who knew about it. All the others
45:39were in the dark.
45:40Boswell said he hadn't told the truth immediately to the police because publicity would have wrecked the operation.
45:48He had an answer for everything. The £750,000 in the Isle of Man bank was from a previous dive
45:55that recovered Spanish gold bullion.
45:58And he'd used that to buy his yacht, the Escapade of Torbay.
46:03And underground tanks at Boswell's home at Bewley in Hampshire were there to store bullion and cash.
46:10If the story was to be believed, nobody involved would have broken any laws.
46:17We had to step back and think, well, heck, we never thought of that.
46:22It had come straight out of the blue.
46:28We were sort of gobsmacked, really.
46:33Are they going to believe this, you know? This could really cause us a problem.
46:37They may have started with a sense of disbelief.
46:40But gradually you could feel people saying, well, wait a minute, this is not a long shot at all.
46:46There's something here that really requires scrutiny because of what's missing in the prosecution case and what is undoubtedly at
46:56the bottom of the Irish Sea.
46:59He was going on with this and getting close to the end of his examination in chief when I got
47:06a tap on the shoulder from one of the court ashes and said, there's a call for you outside, it's
47:10urgent.
47:11So I went out to hear Pat Malloy, who had now retired, but was the recent head of the David
47:20Powers CID, on the phone.
47:23He'd been following the case. He'd been at court on previous days.
47:26And he said, I know where he got it from or where's that effect.
47:31And he referred to this book, Iron Coffins.
47:36A BBC documentary crew happened to be filming Pat Malloy when he realised a book he'd recently borrowed from Fishguard
47:44Library could be the basis for Robin's extraordinary excuse.
47:48So, Pat, what have you found now in the library?
47:50It could be quite remarkable.
47:53A fortnight ago I was reading this book called Iron Coffins.
47:57A true story, a personal account of the German U-boat battles of World War II, written by Herbert A.
48:02Werner, who was the chief officer of U-230.
48:05In the witness stand, Robin claimed he'd got the location of the sunken submarine carrying the Nazi gold, from a
48:12man called Werner.
48:14Now, what a coincidence. It could be that this is where he's got it from, that he's read it perhaps
48:19in the prison library, and I'm going to get in touch with the court to give it to the prosecuting
48:24counsel.
48:24And he rushed up from Fishguard all the way to Swansea and got there just in time.
48:33Pat Malloy handed the book over to prosecution barrister Gareth Williams, who immediately brought it into court.
48:41Gareth reminded him that Robin Boswell's father was a naval officer and said perhaps he'd have seafaring books at home.
48:49Oh, yes.
48:52Was this one of them? And I remember him holding it up, and it was passed to Boswell in the
48:57witness box.
48:58Iron Coffins.
49:01Oh, I don't know. Haven't you read that, Mr Boswell?
49:05And I could see what I thought were wry smiles on the faces of some of the jurors. I couldn't
49:12tell necessarily what it meant. But it made me feel, I don't think this is being believed.
49:23385 days after the strange underground cavern was discovered on a remote Pembrokeshire beach, the jury retired to consider the
49:32verdict.
49:35A jury at Swansea Crown Court has convicted two men of conspiring to smuggle nearly £6 million worth of cannabis
49:43into the country. They'll be sentenced later.
49:47The defendants stood as the judge told them that they'd been involved in plans to import a massive amount of
49:54cannabis through West Wales.
49:57The gang's leader, Robin Boswell, was jailed for 10 years. His right-hand man, Soren Berg-Armbach, was handed eight.
50:08Ken Dewar, the 52-year-old who the court case revealed helped build the cavern, got five years.
50:16Robin's ex-wife, Susan Boswell, was jailed for 18 months.
50:22Well, very pleased that they were convicted. So, very satisfying result in the end of the day.
50:28It was very much of a feeling of relief then, you know, that finally these people had been brought to
50:36justice and this team of detectives from a quiet part of West Wales had taken on quite a major drugs
50:46investigation.
50:47And on this occasion, David did beat Goliath then.
50:55For Jim, the only local person charged, he was sentenced to six years for his part as the engineer of
51:03the smuggling gang.
51:04A lot of people said to me over the years, that was a pretty serious result for all of you,
51:12considering that they didn't catch you with any drugs.
51:15Like, a lot of people have expressed that opinion over the years. Like, I'm surprised that you all ended up
51:25with such every sentence.
51:29But there was one surprise.
51:32Donald Holmes had been cleared of conspiracy and may walk free this week.
51:37He was jailed for 18 months for possessing cocaine. He'd pleaded guilty.
51:44Although he was found guilty of cocaine possession, Donald Holmes was found not guilty of being part of the drugs
51:50conspiracy.
51:52Well, the evidence of what he had done in Pembrokeshire was pretty sketchy, really.
51:59They weren't sure in relation to him.
52:03Because he'd been on remand for a year, after a week, he walked free.
52:08So I was disappointed that, because I knew that he was very much an integral part of this operation.
52:14I think he was crying.
52:17That's all I say. He's a very lucky man.
52:24As well as the Pembrokeshire people, the judge also commended and expressed his admiration of the David Powys police team
52:31who carried out the investigation.
52:33It's been a tremendous trial of stamina and strength for the team that was working with Don Evans and myself
52:42for so long.
52:43We are certain that we have now been fortunate in striking off a very important team in this country and
52:49in Europe.
52:49It was very pleasing to hear the judge publicly commending the people of Newport for their public spirit.
53:01But despite this success, the prosecution team was left frustrated that the judge was unable to seize any of the
53:09considerable assets they alleged Robin had made from previous smuggles.
53:14But before the sentences came, he had already told them that he had no power to strip Robin Boswell of
53:20his assets.
53:21To be quite honest, he said, I wish I could, but I can't.
53:25We're pretty certain that they had been making a lot of money over a long period of time and had
53:30got away with a lot of smuggling.
53:33What we don't know is what they did with all of that money.
53:35And the fact that very little has been heard of these guys since, comparatively speaking, possibly also attests to that
53:45fact as well.
53:49So what did happen next to the convicted smugglers?
53:53Only a few years later, the law caught up with Donald Holmes again, but this time in South America.
54:00I know that about two years later, he was found at Lima in Peru with somewhere near 25 kilos of
54:10cocaine on board his boat, which was called the Golden Fleece.
54:16And that was quite high value, just high purity cocaine, and he was detained by the police in Lima.
54:25And he was eventually sentenced there to, I believe, 15 years imprisonment.
54:31You know, I was quite surprised to hear that. I must say, so soon after Seal Bay, obviously bang at
54:37it again.
54:37And of course in Peru, 15 years imprisonment means 15 years.
54:43That was very substantial. It's more than he would have got in Pembrokeshire.
54:47You know, a British jail, okay, but a Peruvian jail, I would imagine he wouldn't survive that.
54:54If Donald did survive, he would now be in his nineties.
54:58But despite our best efforts, we were unable to find any trace of him.
55:03We did manage to track down a few members of the smuggling gang, but they either declined to take part
55:09or ignored our communications.
55:11The only one who was willing to talk was the Welshman, Jim.
55:17You can't just go and tell somebody that story, can you? You know, you don't know how people react.
55:22And a lot of people would say, oh, I don't believe that.
55:26That didn't happen. You're telling me lies, like, sort of thing, you know.
55:30Yeah, it happened, all right. All of it.
55:35The only other information we have is about Robin Boswell.
55:41Fond memories of Robin Boswell, because we got on well.
55:45He was very accessible, very personable, very thoughtful, easy to have conversations with.
55:53I think you take to him straight away, or at least I did anyway.
55:56But I remember after the case, we continued contact after he'd been released from prison,
56:03because he established an organic vegetable supply company.
56:09And I wanted to support somebody who was trying to set up a new future.
56:13So I got a box of organic vegetables once a week for about, I don't know, a couple of years,
56:18I think, when I was living in London.
56:28But other than that, nothing was heard from the smuggling gang again.
56:33And the conclusion of Operation Seal Bay signalled the end of an era.
56:40The Seal Bay story kind of puts a sort of full stop to a particular era in the history of
56:47smuggling in Britain.
56:48It's the era of these yacht smugglers.
56:51Boswell's demise is pretty much the last of these sort of counterculture gentlemen smugglers.
56:59The trade is already becoming more professional, more ruthless, more violent.
57:09The yachtsmen, the adventurers, are being muscled aside.
57:15There is a whole new breed of professional criminals now, many of them ex-armed robbers who are based on
57:20the southern coast of Spain,
57:23who are taking over the cannabis trade to the UK.
57:26And the nexus for the trade now becomes the Costadel crime.
57:36Nothing like Operation Seal Bay ever happened in the Newport area again.
57:42And today it's a distant memory.
57:45But for those that do remember it, it's something that will stay with them forever.
57:53They thought that they could just slip into this area and run their operation, land these drugs, and that nobody
58:00would notice.
58:01But, oh, they hadn't bargained for the people of Pembrokeshire.
58:06If he would have said to me, I'm going to build a cave on the beach and so-and-so,
58:10I'd have said to him,
58:12that's impossible, somebody's going to know.
58:15But they didn't ask me.
58:17There's people who've got nothing else to do but luck.
58:21And some right nosy people around, you know.
58:26Nosy? No, no.
58:28Very welcoming, but always very, very protective of the community.
58:33Very protective of our town.
58:36That's the way we have always been, and that's the way we will always be.
58:40And I ran, I ran so far away.
58:48I just ran, I ran all night and day.
58:54And I ran, I ran so far away.
59:00I ran so far away.
59:00Yeah.
59:01Yeah.
59:05Thank you for having us.
59:07Hi.
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