William's ship seizes £40m cocaine haul

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The Royal Navy warship the Prince is serving on recovered nearly a ton of the drug when it intercepted a speedboat in the West Indies on Saturday.

HMS Iron Duke spent days tracking down the vessel, which appeared to be heading for Europe or West Africa, after receiving a tip-off from the US authorities.

William was involved in planning the operation and carrying out surveillance of the drugs boat, the ship's captain Commander Mark Newland said. The 50ft speedboat - known as a "go-fast" - was spotted by HMS Iron Duke's Lynx helicopter in the north Atlantic hundreds of miles north-east of Barbados.

Suspicions were raised because such a small vessel would not normally be so far out to sea.

US Coast Guard officials based on the British warship boarded the boat and found 45 bales of cocaine weighing a total of 900kg (1,980lb). The five crew members were detained and the drugs were transferred to HMS Iron Duke. The speedboat later sank.

Cdr Newland praised the Prince's maturity and experience during the seizure, saying he had already become "part of the team".

He said: "My remit is absolutely clear from my senior officers. I am to expose Sub-Lieutenant Wales to every aspect of front line operations in a Royal Navy warship. The fact that this unfolded over a period of days means that it had very discrete phases to the operation.

"I was at each phase able to introduce him to and expose him to the way we do our business, from the planning all the way through to getting the sea boats and the 45 bales of cocaine on board HMS Iron Duke on Saturday evening. This is a young man who has three, four years of professional military experience behind him.

"He is someone who contributes at every level. He is a very professional military officer, and very astute. He acts as I would expect a young officer of his experience and maturity to act in this type of operation."