Pensioner couple in their 70s jailed for £1,000,000 cocaine smuggling

A British couple in their 70s have been jailed for eight years after trying to smuggle £1 million of cocaine into Europe on a luxury Caribbean cruise.

Roger and Sue Clarke, aged 72 and 71 respectively, were arrested on board cruise liner Marco Polo on December 4 last year.

Portuguese police arrested the pair after a tip-off from the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Officers discovered nine kilos of cocaine hidden inside the lining of four suitcases which Roger was handed on the island of St Lucia.

Yesterday the couple, who were living in the Guardamar del Segura near Alicante, Spain, were convicted of drug trafficking after a one-day trial in Lisbon.

 

Prosecutors said the Clarkes were making between £18,000 and £26,500 per cruise for smuggling drugs into Europe.

The NCA said they believed the couple were planning to offload the cocaine in Portugal.

Roger told the court he had no idea the cases had drugs inside and that he was taking them back to the UK for a friend called ‘Lee’ who promised to pay him £800.

He claimed ‘Lee’, a Jamaican-UK businessman, and another associate called ‘Dee’ asked him to help import exotic fruit during Caribbean cruise stopovers.

The court heard Roger had handed one of the old suitcases to a cabin steward when they joined the cruise in Tilbury, Essex.

State prosecutor Manuela Brito rubbished Roger’s claim that he had been ‘betrayed’ by his friends.

She insisted the Brits were drug mules who used the four South American cruises as a front for their crimes.

She questioned how they could pay for the £18,000 cruises on a joint monthly pension of £1,150 and pay £445 rent as well.

The court heard the Clarkes both served prison sentences in Norway after being convicted in 2010 for trafficking 240 kilos of cannabis resin.

Roger, who was born Button but changed his name to Clarke soon after his release, was jailed for nearly five years and Sue for three years nine months.

Additional reporting by Gerard Couzens.