Scrap in the trash led to U.K. drug bust

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A sweeping cocaine smuggling case that ensnared a former Canadian Coast Guard ship and landed a Nova Scotia fisherman in a Spanish jail started with the discovery of a slip of paper in a wastebasket.

Scotland Yard revealed these details this week after the sentencing on Wednesday in a London court of the last two defendants in Britain in the case.

In the fall of 2008, two Irish citizens hired Oakville, Ont., lawyer Jonathan Marler to incorporate a firm in Canada so they could buy a former Canadian coast guard vessel.

"I was told they were buying the boat for exploration purpose," Mr. Marler said. "I guess … exploration has a wide definition."

He said he never met the two buyers, Michael McDermott and Paul Cahill, who found him through an Ontario maritime broker. Contacts were made through representatives of the two men in Spain and Britain.

The 58-metre-long steel-hulled ship they bought, CCGS Parizeau, was an oceanic research vessel for Fisheries and Oceans Canada until it was decommissioned in 2001 and renamed Destiny Empress. The ship then passed through several owners.

In the winter of 2008, the new owners sent the Destiny Empress to Shelburne, N.S., to be refurbished. In nearby Digby, Philip Halliday heard that Mr. McDermott was looking for crew members for the ship.

Mr. Halliday was a scallop fisherman who turned to carpentry because of heart problems. In previous media interviews, his wife, Sheree, said her husband was happy to be back at sea and got along with Mr. McDermott, who hired him as part of a crew taking the boat to Antigua.

In January, 2009, the Metropolitan Police searched the west London home of a mid-level dealer named Jaspreet Hill and seized 1.5 kilos of cocaine. In a wastebasket, detectives found an invoice for more than £100,000 in ship repairs for the CCGS Parizeau.

They began looking into the ship's activities and uncovered what they said was a network of drug traffickers.

In the ensuing months, Scotland Yard made several arrests in Britain in the investigation. "This organized network went to great lengths to disguise their criminal activity. They set up false businesses to enable them to push millions of pounds through legitimate bureau de changes to pay for the drugs they were dealing," Acting Detective Chief Inspector Steve Ellen said in a statement after the sentencing on Wednesday of the last two defendants in Britain.

In November, 2009, Mr. Halliday was hired for another trip on the Destiny Empress. His wife said he was told the ship was heading to Europe, and Mr. McDermott had been replaced by a British captain. The other crewmembers were mostly Romanians.

In rough waters 200 miles off the coast of Galicia, a Spanish police tactical squad intercepted the Destiny Empress on Dec. 20. The seven crew members, including Mr. Halliday, were arrested along with others on land, including the alleged ring leader, a Colombian identified by Spanish media as Richard Smit Peña.

Spanish police found 40 bales of high-grade cocaine weighing about 1.5 tonnes in a hidden compartment of the ship, accessed through a bolted trap door under a carpet. British police said the shipment would have been worth £375-million on the streets of London.

A month later, Mr. McDermott was arrested at Dublin Airport on Feb. 9. He had been named in a European arrest warrant that a British judge issued four days before the Spanish police intercepted the Destiny Empress. He was eventually acquitted of charges of supplying drugs and laundering money.

"The subjects are experienced criminals with long-standing associations. Their network stretches from London and Spain to the Caribbean and Colombia," Scotland Yard said at the time.

Family members of Mr. Halliday, who has no criminal record, say he is an innocent pawn who was told the ship was being sailed across the Atlantic to be sold to a European buyer. In poor health, he awaits trial while relatives press Canadian politicians to take up his cause and preparing an attempt to have a 1,200-name petition tabled in the House of Commons because they feel the government has not done enough.

"He was under the assumption that the boat was empty," family friend Teressa Faessler said. "We're all desperate. He took the trip of a lifetime and ended up in a Spanish jail."

Editor's Note: The original newspaper version of this article and an earlier online version contained a slightly different description of the charges on which Mr. McDermott was acquitted. This online version contains the clarification.