Banker 'caught smuggling £8m of cocaine on yacht'

A retired banker and three other Britons are facing life in jail after customs officers in Gibraltar found £8million worth of cocaine on the yacht they were crewing.

The four claimed they were set up after volunteering to sail the 50ft vessel - called the Gin - across the Atlantic from the Caribbean island of St Lucia to the British enclave in the Mediterranean.

They maintain they had no idea the drugs had been hidden in a secret glass fibre compartment on the boat.

The crew, including one woman, were last night in Gibraltar prison as lawyers were trying to have them freed on bail.

Jonathan Kelway, 57, described as a highly-respected sailor, was remanded in custody along with 51-year-old first mate Trevor Collenette, a former banker who worked for Lloyds TSB until 2006.

The other two are Martin Genocchio and his partner Kathryn Burman, both in their late 20s.

They were arrested on the boat on June 5, after Customs officers found 183 slabs of cocaine weighing 216 kilos (476lb) in a sealed compartment in the stern.

Lawyers said the drugs were so "professionally" hidden that a previous routine search of the boat in the Azores by the Portuguese authorities failed to locate them.

Even when the Gin arrived in Gibraltar on June 4 and was routinely searched by Customs officers the drugs were not apparent.

But when officers again boarded the yacht in the early hours of June 5, they reportedly headed straight for the hidden compartment.

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"The drugs were hidden behind the equivalent of the false bottom of a suitcase," said one lawyer.

The four are accused of possession, possession with intent to supply and importation of drugs, and face life imprisonment if convicted.

Mr Collenette and his co-accused yesterday insisted they had innocently signed up to deliver the Beneteau-built yacht for a Gibraltar-based company. The firm is owned by a Croatian national, but Customs officers have not been able to trace him since the arrests.

Mr Collenette, who lives in Jersey, volunteered as first mate through an online company, Crewseekers.

His father, David, said yesterday that his son is a keen yachtsman. "Trevor began doing delivery runs of yachts last year," he added.

"He wanted to do it because he needed ocean-going experience to enhance his qualifications.

"We can't believe this has happened. It is very worrying."

Lawyer Stephen ffrench Davis is representing Mr Kelway and Mr Collenette and is making a further bail application on their behalf next week.

None of the four knew each other until they met at Gatwick Airport to fly out to St Lucia on April 29, their lawyers say.

After they arrived on the Caribbean island, they set sail for Gibraltar on May 2 and their lawyers claim they would not have had enough time on the island to make the false compartment.

They maintain there is no evidence that the four hid the drugs on the boat.

When they appeared on June 7 before Gibraltar magistrate Charles Pitto, Mr Kelway told him: "We are innocent parties in this."

Mr Kelway has been a professional boat captain for the past 14 years and has run his own sailing school - and, as an experienced charter and delivery skipper, has also worked on luxury yachts.

Last night Paul Stock, a director of Crewseekers, described him as a "highly-respected delivery skipper".

He added: 'We have said to the authorities in Gibraltar that if there is anything we can do to help him and the other people who signed up to crew this vessel, then we will do so.'