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A 38-year-old Welshman who was part of a criminal gang that tried to smuggle £1m of illegal drugs into Jersey has been jailed for 25 years in Australia.
Scott Felix Jones was sentenced recently in Perth for his involvement in a separate drug smuggling attempt which, like the Jersey operation, involved bringing the contraband ashore from a chartered yacht.
Jones sent to prison by West Australia’s Supreme Court for his role in a bungled attempt to land £42m-worth of cocaine, ecstasy, and crystal meth into the country in September 2019.
He was found guilty, along with a number of accomplices, by a jury in April.
Jones was one of a three-man landing party, tasked with sailing a RIB to meet a yacht called Zero, which had sailed more that 4,000 miles from Madagascar to South Africa and onto the remote Abrolhos Islands, west of Geraldton in WA.
The yacht was carrying 900 kg of illegal drugs, destined for the streets of Australia.
The RIB which Jones and his accomplices used to transport the drugs from the Zero yacht was found on a remote island (Credit: WA Police).
But the attempt was beset by calamity, including an inadvertent pocket dial which recorded a conversation about the drugs, both the RIB and yacht running aground, and a giant seal which blocked an escape route after two of the smugglers had woken it up.
Earlier in 2019, Jones had also had a role in the Jersey smuggling attempt.
In April of that year, he had travelled from London to Jersey. Jersey police and customs officers searched his hotel room while he was out and found £12,000 in cash in a plastic bag in its safe.
Jones also met with one of the leaders of the Jersey attempt, Jon Hughes, who was jailed for 14 years and three months by the Royal Court in September 2020.
Knowing the money was a part of a bigger jigsaw, the Jersey officers left the money in situ and Jones returned to London the next day.
However, he was not involved with the actual importation attempt, which involved a yacht sailing from the south coast of England to St. Catherine, where it was intercepted by the authorities.
April’s trial in Perth also revealed the central role of another British man, who also had a key part to play in the Jersey smuggling attempt, which took place less than three months before the Australian one.
John Alexander Roy was arrested by Jersey police and was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the Royal Court in September 2020.
But immediately before his arrest, knowing that the Jersey importation had failed, Roy was coordinating the Australian operation from the UK.
Jones will have to serve at least 17 years in prison before he is eligible for parole, although the sentence was backdated to the time of his arrest in September 2019. He is likely to be deported when released.
Pictured top: The yacht Zero aground off the Abrolhos Islands in September 2019 (Credit: WA Police).
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