Two elderly Brits have been arrested on a Caribbean cruise ship after large amounts of cocaine were discovered in their luggage.
A man and a woman, aged 72 and 70, were escorted from the luxury vessel on its return to Europe, and taken into custody in Lisbon on suspicion of drug trafficking.
The Policia Judiciaria (PJ), Portugal’s serious crime agency, confirmed that two foreign nationals had been detained shortly after the ship docked on the basis of information received from the UK’s National Crime Agency.
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In a statement, the PJ said that officers had searched the suspects’ cabin and “located four suitcases in whose structures was ingeniously concealed a large amount of cocaine”.
A Portuguese police source told The Times that the haul amounted to around 9kg of the Class A drug, with a street value in the region of £500,000.
“Drugs gangs sometimes try to plant cocaine or other illegal substances on elderly people during cruises so that they act as unwitting mules,” says The Times. But equally, “it has also been known for pensioners to smuggle drugs in return for a large payment from traffickers”.
The police declined to give details of the ship involved, but the London Evening Standard reports that it was the Cruise & Maritime Voyages ship Marco Polo, which left London on 5 November with 610 passengers for a trip around the West Indies and Azores.
The vessel completed its itinerary and returned to the London Cruise Terminal at Tilbury on Saturday, the newspaper reports.
The arrested couple appeared in a closed court hearing in Portugal yesterday, and were remanded in custody. The investigation continues.
A spokesman for Cruise & Maritime Voyages said the company was co-operating fully with police. “Cruise & Maritime Voyages do not tolerate any criminal activity or anti-social behaviour on board their ships,” he added.
