Drug arrest yachtsman also involved in sailor disappearance in 2007
by Sail-World Cruising on 22 Oct 2010
Police have seized an estimated $160m worth of drugs from this yacht off the Queensland coast. SW
One of the yachtsmen arrested last week over Australia's third-largest ever police drug haul has been in the news before in Sail-World, the previous time for the mysterious disappearance of an Australian sailor while sailing across the Pacific Ocean.
Andrew Witton from Coff's Harbour on the east coast of Australia was sailing from Tahiti to the Galapagos Islands with Simon Golding, one of those arrested last week, when he disappeared from his yacht, Kaileia, on January 13, 2007. His body has never been found. (See http://www.sail-world.com/Cruising/Criminal-charges-after-MOB-incident?/64019!full_story)
An inquest at the State Coroner's Court in Sydney's suburb of Glebe later heard that Witton and Golding were about 300nm south of Pitcairn Island, without an HF radio, when Mr Witton vanished. According to Golding, he was asleep when Witton vanished, but earlier comments and his behaviour after the incident aroused police suspicions.
In December 2009, the New South Wales Coroner recommended the disappearance of the yachtsman be referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to see if criminal charges should be laid.
In last weeks operation, Australian authorities cornered two sailing boats - a yacht and a catamaran - with 464 kilos of cocaine, worth about $160,000, on board. Five arrests were made, of a Costa Rican, a German, and three Australians, one of which was Golding.
After a tip-off from the other side of the Pacific, authorities watched the boats progress across the Pacific and pounced once the yacht docked at the Scarborough Marina in Brisbane on Tuesday.
However, the catamaran was still at sea. The New South Wales Water Police and the Customs and Border Protection Service then surrounded the catamaran, which was about 200 nautical miles off the coast.
In extremely rough sea conditions, Customs and Border Protection officers were able to board the catamaran and detain the two men.
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