TWO Brit pensioners nicked on a cruise with cocaine worth £1million blamed a mystery Jamaican businessman, court papers show.
Ex-chef Roger Clarke, 72, told cops a man called Lee paid for the £6,800 Caribbean cruise.
Roger Clarke, 72, and his wife Sue, 71, were caught with the nine kilos of cocaine in December last year[/caption]
The couple were arrested as cruise liner MC Marco Polo docked in Lisbon[/caption]
And he claimed Lee asked him to buy exotic fruit to sell in the UK and got him to pick up “empty” cases from a middleman in St Lucia.
Clarke and wife Sue, 71 — from Kent and with a house in Spain — are due in court today over the drug bust on the MC Marco Polo in Lisbon in December.
The couple, who have been in custody since, face up to 12 years in jail if convicted of trafficking.
Britain’s National Crime Agency, which tipped off colleagues in Portugal, have not revealed how they got their intelligence on the Clarkes.
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But court papers made public ahead of the trial highlight their 2010 conviction and imprisonment in Norway for trafficking cannabis resin.
A Portuguese police report in the files says there is “no doubt” the Clarkes “had contact with drugs trafficking organisations” during two trips to South America in 2017 and another in 2018.
Police chiefs said the claims about Lee made “no sense” and that the Clarkes could both be making up to £26,500 plus expenses per trip.
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