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Cannabis smugglers jailed Auslan Cramb BBC Tuesday 12 Dec 2000 Three Dutch drugs traffickers have each been sentenced to 14 years in prison for their involvement in one of Scotland's biggest ever seizures of cannabis. Customs officers discovered more than eight tonnes of cannabis resin on board the yacht Red Scorpion when it was stopped off the coast of Scotland. At the High Court in Edinburgh the judge, Lord Hardie, said Albert Hulst, 43, Christian Ekkebus, 29, and Arjeh Vandijk, 33, were part of an organised group of international drug smugglers. Lord Hardie said he would have imposed an even greater penalty had the law allowed. The long-running trial came to an end on Monday when the three men pleaded guilty to the drug trafficking charge. Customs officers estimated the drugs haul to have a street value of £43m. During the trial the court heard that the 45ft single-masted ketch had been built in Greece in 1989 and was first registered in the Czech Republic. It was later provided with a new set of papers as the Red Scorpion by Maltese authorities and its home port was said to be Valletta. Conversions were made to equip the vessel for weeks at sea without the need to alert suspicion by calling in at any port. Customs officers said they became suspicious of the vessel and began tailing it. By then the Red Scorpion was heading for a rendezvous off the Dutch coast. They noticed that a sail was ripped and the boat seemed to have been at sea for a long time. More than eight tonnes of drugs loaded on board the 34 tonne vessel was also having an effect on its handling. Waves were breaking over the deck more than should have been the case. Customs officer Robin Baird said the Red Scorpion was "flat in the water." "In nautical terms it leaks like a sieve," he said. The Customs boat then intercepted the vessel between Orkney and Shetland and towed it to Aberdeen. An examination of the navigation equipment on the Red Scorpion showed it had travelled from Morocco, out into the Atlantic to avoid the coast of Portugal, Spain, France and the Republic of Ireland.
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