A 70-year-old man from Berlin allegedly attempted to transport over two tons of cocaine across the Atlantic to Europe in a spectacular manner: using a catamaran. The man has now been charged with trafficking a substantial quantity of drugs. On Thursday, the public prosecutor’s office announced that it had filed charges before the Berlin regional court against the man.
The man, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Berlin for a 2024 drug trafficking offence, is now being accused of coordinating and pre-financing the transport of more than 2.2 tons of cocaine from Brazil to Europe in 2021. He is alleged to have spent 2 million euros and could face an added 10 years to his current sentence.
He is said to have used an encrypted phone from the provider Sky ECC and planned to transport the cocaine from Brazil to Sierra Leone via catamaran. From there, the drugs were to be smuggled to Europe.
The plan broke down due to a communication error. The catamaran couldn’t make contact with a tugboat in Sierra Leone as planned and was forced to turn around. On its way back to Brazil, the catamaran was intercepted by Brazilian authorities and its crew members were all arrested.
The crew members were sentenced to several years in prison and the captain received a sentence of 23 years and 4 months. The drugs were destroyed, and the sailboat was handed over to a Brazilian university for marine research.
