How a British man allegedly tricked Brazilian sailors into dealing cocaine

For Daniel Guerra, an ambitious Brazilian sailor who wants to travel around the world, the job ad is a dream come true.

A British yacht owner is looking for two deckhands to help take his boat across the Atlantic from Brazil, one of the great ocean voyages.

There will be no salary but all expenses will be paid – and most importantly Mr Guerra will gain some of the sailing experience needed to qualify as a sea captain.

“My dream was to become a captain and go work in Europe,” recalls the 43-year-old man who saw an ad from an online sailing recruitment company.

“So I’m extremely happy to know that the road to my dream is starting.”

Things got even better when Mr Guerra and his recruitment partner, Rodrigo Dantas, 32, met their new British employer.

They were scared that he might be a yacht snob or a fake Instagrammer who would make sure they knew who was boss.

But no. George Saul is a smiling, friendly person who does not require formality. The sailors, he said, could even call him by his nickname – “Fox”.

Mr Dantas added: “I have worked on a number of boats and the owners were old, extremely demanding, extremely rude and would talk to me.” “He’s very cool, very friendly.”

Fox even passed the approval test of Mr. Dantas’s parents, who were worried about their son having to make such a long journey on a yacht owned by someone completely distant. strange and asked to meet him privately.

To borrow an old sailing expression, they liked the look of his jib. They learned that Fox had taken Rich Harvest to Brazil for refit and wanted a capable crew to take it back to Europe on his behalf.

In addition to the new recruits, Mr. Dantas and Mr. Guerra, there were two others, including a qualified captain.

“I said: ‘Watch out for my son,'” Mr. Dantas’ father João recalled. “He said: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Rodrigo.’”

As it turned out, his parents weren’t the only ones who wanted to check that everything was okay aboard the Rich Harvest.

Before departing from Brazil, local police spent about six hours searching the yacht for drugs with the help of sniffer dogs.

However, they did not find what they were looking for and the sailors assumed it was just a routine check.

They had heard stories about cocaine being grown on the boat, and now at least they knew they were innocent.

“When you go through the airport… your luggage goes through an X-ray machine,” Mr. Dantas said. “So I thought this was an international trip and they were going to inspect the ship.”

Those worries disappeared from their minds when they finally began their epic journey on August 4, 2017, the Brazilian coast slowly receding behind them.

They were also accompanied by an additional crew member, Daniel Dantas (no relation to Rodrigo Dantas) and the yacht’s newly hired captain, Frenchman Olivier Thomas, 56, who replaced the captain. The Englishman previously had unproven sailing skills.

Meanwhile, Fox had left for Europe by plane two days earlier.

“It was a beautiful day, perfect weather, sunshine,” recalled Mr. Guerra, who posted a message thanking Fox on his Facebook page.

It read: “I’m truly grateful, Fox, for… this learning opportunity and for our relationship making me stronger. Thank you mate.”

After two weeks at sea, the yacht had engine problems, forcing it to stop at Cape Verde, an archipelago off the coast of West Africa.

Once again, Mr. Guerra and Mr. Dantas found reason to look on the bright side. The islands are a tourist paradise and Fox said he would transfer money to them for their enjoyment while repairs were carried out at the local marina.

And when more police arrived to search the ship, Mr. Guerra was not worried.

“They didn’t find anything in Brazil,” he thought to himself. “They won’t find anything in Cape Verde either.”

Cape Verde police were even more thorough than Brazilian police, using specialized cutting equipment to open the yacht’s internal parts.

Hidden beneath false floors, they found nearly 1.2 tons of cocaine – worth an estimated £100 million ($134 million) if sold on the streets of Europe.

Mr. Guerra said: “I felt like all my freedom was being destroyed. I was so angry, I couldn’t accept what was happening, you know? I was really cheated.”

In March 2018, the crew went to court in Cape Verde to protest their innocence.

They had never even heard of Rich Harvest or its owners until they responded to the job ad, they insisted.

However, they were sentenced to 10 years in prison each – in what was hailed as one of the country’s biggest bankruptcies.

However, while the catch was impressive, the man whom Brazilian police considered the big fish escaped.

They believe the mastermind of the operation was Fox, whose yacht first came to their attention thanks to a warning from the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).

Brazilian police believe he is the ringleader of the drug smuggling operation.

In August 2018, Fox was arrested in Italy, where Brazilian police filed extradition proceedings. They want him returned to Brazil to answer the charges against him.

But the paperwork arrived too late and he was released – to the dismay of Brazilian police inspector Andre Gonçalves.

He feared that Fox had then gone into hiding.

“We had the feeling that after all our work, we would never get to the bottom of it,” he told the BBC. “It’s very, very frustrating.”

Mr. Gonçalves said his team supervised both Fox and the yacht in Brazil. They believe the boat was “renovated” in part to fit it with secret compartments, and that drugs were loaded on board before sailors were hired.

Mr. Gonçalves admitted that he initially thought four sailors were also involved.

“If someone is on a boat full of drugs, you think that person must have something to do with it,” he said.

But when he looked into their backgrounds, he could find nothing previously linking them to the drug world or to Fox.

“The deeper I went, I still couldn’t find any connection… but at the same time it also strengthened the evidence we had against Fox.”

The sailors’ plea of ​​innocence also received support from an unlikely source – fellow Briton Robert Delbos, an alleged accomplice of Fox.

Delbos, 71, is a convicted drug trafficker who was jailed for 12 years in 1988 for plotting to smuggle 1.5 tonnes of cannabis into the UK.

Before Rich Harvest left Brazil, Mr. Gonçalves’ team observed Delbos overseeing the first phase of the yacht’s renovation.

They initially suspected he was installing secret compartments and successfully filed extradition proceedings against him at the same time as the proceedings against Fox.

Delbos spent months in a Supermax prison in Brazil awaiting trial, but he also said the drugs were later planted without his knowledge.

He was acquitted after the judge in his case ruled that it could not be proven that he knew about the smuggling plan.

In an interview with the BBC, he claimed that even drug traffickers have codes of ethics and that Fox violated them by using innocent sailors as mules instead of hiring smugglers. professional.

“This is completely out of bounds. I mean, you can’t do this,” he said.

“He’s a stupid and greedy man. Instead of paying his crew a fair wage and getting himself a bloody, professional band of smugglers – he hired four innocent guys.”

As suspicions about the sailors’ guilt grew, their families began a campaign on their behalf, which became a cause sensation in Brazil.

In 2019, their convictions in Cape Verde were overturned and they were allowed to return home.

Meanwhile, Fox never had to appear in court and returned to the UK.

The 41-year-old lives in Norwich, eastern England, where he grew up, went to university locally and is an accomplished amateur rower – sailing off the nearby Norfolk coast.

Today, he lives on the outskirts of Norwich and runs a real estate company.

He belongs to a local business networking association and on his social media feed last March, posted photos of himself with then-Mayor James Wright.

There is no suggestion that Mr Wright was aware of the allegations against Fox.

The BBC followed Fox as he arrived at one of his network association’s weekly business breakfasts, at a hotel in Norwich.

He declined to comment on Rich Harvest and the sailors’ ordeal.

When asked about allegations that he was a drug dealer, he replied: “I’m not.”

An NCA spokesman said if Brazilian police still wanted to pursue the case, they would have to apply for extradition.

Brazil’s Justice Ministry said it does not comment on individual cases.

Meanwhile, Rodrigo Dantas and Daniel Guerra are trying to rebuild their lives in Brazil when their dreams of becoming yacht captains are abandoned.

Mr. Dantas said he struggled to find boating work when he returned home, and some employers thought he must have been guilty after all.

Mr. Guerra’s ambition to sail around the world is “locked in Cape Verde”.

He said he had lost the ability to trust people, which is important during the challenges of any long cruise.

Even now, he still wonders who Fox really is – the “cool” British guy he was once so grateful for, whose subsequent job advertisement turned his life upside down.

He said he “really wants to see justice served”, but does not want to see Fox again.

“If I meet him, it won’t be me who’s talking, it’ll be another Daniel. All my bad feelings from prison will come rushing back and I won’t be able to become a civilized person.”

Coming in October The Secret World, Part 5: Finding Mr. Fox.

One joint BBC Africa Eye, BBC Brasil and the World of Secrets podcast investigate a plot to smuggle more than $100 million worth of cocaine to Europe.