Five jailed over £34m cocaine haul landed at Eastbourne Marina, two for 16 years each

Five men caught landing 425kg of cocaine worth £34m at Eastbourne Marina have been jailed at Hove Crown Court, with two sentenced to 16 years each, according to the National Crime Agency.

Tim

Published 10:55, Saturday, 24 October 2026 · Updated 12:21, Saturday, 24 October 20263 min read

Calm water at Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne with blocks of flats on the far shore, a stone breakwater and a shingle bank in the foreground — Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne (file photo, not from the operation, Photo: Poliphilo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Five men who were caught bringing 425kg of cocaine, with a street value of £34m, ashore at Eastbourne Marina have been jailed for between six years and eight months and 16 years. The National Crime Agency (NCA) says they were sentenced at Hove Crown Court on Friday 23 October 2026 after pleading guilty. Details here come from the NCA’s sentencing release and its earlier release on the arrests.

Sentenced. Friday 23 October 2026, Hove Crown Court.

The haul. 425kg of cocaine with a street value of £34m, landed from the fishing vessel New Horizon on 8 June 2026.

Pleas. All five pleaded guilty, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) quote in the NCA release. Early pleas cut each sentence by a third.

The sentences

Alan Colquhoun, 49, of Alloa, Clackmannanshire. 16 years, reduced from 24.

William Donohoe, 38, of Airdrie. 16 years, reduced from 24.

Ian Smith, 50, of Eastbourne. 12 years, reduced from 18.

Daniel Ruffell, 36, of Slough. Eight years, reduced from 12.

Jacob Cronin, 32, of Eastbourne. Six years and eight months, reduced from 10 years.

What the NCA says happened

The NCA says its officers had been investigating the organised crime group for several months and were watching the men. On 8 June, as the men hauled the cocaine off the New Horizon at Eastbourne Marina, officers arrested them.

According to the NCA, the cocaine had been bundled into waterproof bags fitted with a GPS tracker and dropped overboard from another vessel in the English Channel. Colquhoun and Donohoe’s crew were to collect it, bring it ashore and pass it to other crime groups around the country. The NCA says both men expected an £80,000 pay day.

The NCA names Colquhoun and Donohoe as the joint organisers of the group. It says they directed the others and dealt with the group that had trafficked the drugs from abroad. It says they scouted the south coast for the best place to land the drugs, and hired a van in Scotland, saying it would be used to move pub stock, before driving it south.

The NCA footage

The NCA has published video of the operation on its YouTube channel, under the title “Five jailed over nearly half a tonne of cocaine in at-sea smuggling attempt”. Watch the NCA video on YouTube. The agency has blurred faces in parts of the footage.

Still from National Crime Agency footage showing a man in a dark cap and jacket inside the cabin of a fishing vessel, with headphones and a kettle on a shelf behind him — Still from footage released by the National Crime Agency, shot inside the vessel’s cabin (Photo: National Crime Agency)

Still from National Crime Agency footage showing an officer holding a yellow Taser inside a vessel cabin, with the subtitle Walk towards me — Still from the NCA footage showing an officer’s Taser in the cabin (Photo: National Crime Agency)

The roles of the other three

The NCA says Smith, a fisherman and the skipper of the New Horizon, was recruited to sail out and find the drugs. Colquhoun, Smith, Cronin and Ruffell were on the boat. Donohoe stayed ashore and was arrested at a petrol station.

Cronin, a fisherman by trade, helped prepare the boat before it sailed. Ruffell acted as the lookout, according to the NCA, and hid in a cupboard on board when armed officers boarded. The NCA says he owed the group a significant debt and joined the crew to help pay it off. It says he has 21 convictions for 43 previous offences.

What the NCA and CPS said

NCA Senior Investigating Officer Carl Barrass said the case had removed five men who are, in his words, “now toxic to fellow criminals”, and nearly half a tonne of cocaine whose profits the group has lost. He said tackling Class A drug supply is an NCA priority.

Shilpa Chauhan, of the CPS Serious Economic Organised and International Crime Division, called it a highly sophisticated conspiracy and said the sentences reflect the serious roles each defendant played, from those who organised the plot to those who carried out the logistics on the ground.

How the case reached court

The NCA’s June release said the five were charged with conspiring to fraudulently evade a prohibition on the importation of a Class A drug. They appeared at Brighton and Hove Magistrates’ Court on 10 June 2026 and were remanded to appear at Lewes Crown Court on 8 July. The sentencing took place at Hove Crown Court.

The NCA says the investigation was helped by the Maritime, Aviation and Military Intervention Cell, Sussex Police and Police Scotland, which carried out a number of searches, and that officers from the National Deep Rummage Team of Border Security Command Maritime supported the search of the vessel.