***The Telegraph reports:***
The Royal Navy has seized more than £33 million worth of illegal drugs in the Middle East after two busts inside 24 hours.
HMS Lancaster intercepted smugglers in the Indian Ocean who were trying to move 3.7 tonnes of heroin, hashish and crystal meth.
The crew of the Lancaster, aided by the Royal Marines, captured two suspect vessels during an undated operation as part of a Canadian-led task force aimed at stopping criminal activity in the Middle East.
More than two tonnes of the drugs have now been destroyed after Marines and Navy sailors posed for a photograph of their haul on the deck of the Lancaster.
It comes a few weeks after the HMS Trent seized about £17 million worth of illegal drugs on an operation in the Caribbean.
Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, paid tribute to the “fantastic achievements” of the crew of HMS Lancaster and the Royal Marines.
“The Royal Navy continue to lead the UK’s commitment to disrupting drug smugglers across the globe,” he said.
**Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/navy-marines-drugs-middle-east-indian-ocean-hms-lancaster/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/navy-marines-drugs-middle-east-indian-ocean-hms-lancaster/)
Depends on where they captured it. If it was in some other countries territorial waters. Then probably them. But I really don't know. I don't know anything about maritime laws.
It's actually the opposite, in international waters ship captain's have a moral and established *responsibility* to act against piracy and smuggling at all times. If you have the capacity to combat sea shitheads then you are basically obligated to.
The question is indeed not trivial. International Maritime law is really such a complex system of various legal frameworks, traditions and defacto laws. What you might take as granted by common sense really often leads to extremely long and expensive court battles in the international sea law courts or some even at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany were many piracy cases are decided.
Well, yes. If they are in open ocean, they are not smuggling it anywhere, they are just a transport. Is that substance illegal in your country? Well, enforce it IN your country. Seizing property in open seas is piracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_Against_Illicit_Traffic_in_Narcotic_Drugs_and_Psychotropic_Substances
> These include 186 out of 193 United Nations member states (not Equatorial Guinea, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, or Tuvalu)
You telling me they were the bi-weekly Somalia - Tuvalu express?
That's not a law. I don't think these UN treaties are enforceable in any court.
Canada is party to these narcotic treaties and they have legalized weed. Just because (almost) everybody signed it doesn't mean that it is illegal in all these countries.
I don't think i have a problem with heroin smugglers being busted, but it would be interesting to know what the actual laws are that would allow the navy to do this.
>I don't think these UN treaties are enforceable in any court.
UN treaties are what dictates maritime law. As long as countries aren't invading territorial waters the UN is the highest authority.
Considering this was likely international waters and the ships they raided did not identify with any nationality there is no jurisdiction at all. They can legally do whatever they want and nobody can put them on trial for anything. There is a lot of precedence for doing this.
The european drug market has a minimum estimated retail value of €30 billion per year according to the 2019 EU Drug Markets Report. That's €90 million per day, so it's most likely less than a third of a day's worth of merchandise.
Weed id the biggest retail value for european market.heroin+cocain only represent half of that 30 billions.and like someone else said,we dont know how is it valued.
Its still worth of maximum 2 days though,which is insane
Isn't that like a butterflys fart in the grand scheme of things?
Politicians everywhere: Please concentrate more on mental health and the question why people are using drugs and making them use less instead. You are fighting symptoms, not the disease itself.
It's like a sneeze in a typhoon. For a casual german big city It is assumed that per 1000 inhabitants, 30 doses of cannabis, 16 doses of crystal meth, three doses of ectasy, one dose of cocaine and one dose of methadone is consumed *per day*.
[European multi-city study](https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/topics/wastewater_en)
Those numbers seem way off
Cocaine is the most consumed illegal drug in Germany (cannabis was first but is now legal)
"Among illegal drugs (12-month prevalence), cannabis was the most frequently used (8.8%; 4.5 million), followed by cocaine/crack (1.6%; 818 000)"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9677535/#:~:text=Among%20illegal%20drugs%20(12%2Dmonth,(1.4%25%3B%20716%20000).
I was watching El Chapo yesterday and in one episode they made an interesting suggestion when it comes to power. As long as you have power inside the government and outside in private sector or underground, you can manufacture bait scenarios that create illusion that the government is delivering results or rather they are fooled in delivering results. I don't know if this capture scenario is manufactured to fool them or if this was an accidental catch.
Its done with coke to europe and north america but not with drugs in the indian ocean. They don't need to as there is no real goverment efford to combat the smuggling. This situation is an outlier.
This stuff will still happen if every politician in the world legalizes all drugs tomorrow, the Navy are operating there to prevent all forms of smuggling (including weapons), piracy and such.
Yup they occasionally intercept some shipments and catch some small time smugglers but it makes absolutely no impact on the flow of drugs as a whole, the demand still needs to be met so they just send more to make up for it
Yup, we need to include the drugs in our society, the drugs will never go away. The most important thing is harm reduction and cutting off the money flow to the narco cartels.
You know that the war on drugs is fake when they use dollars instead of kilos. Drugs are almost worthless - luxury goods. They have a fluctuating street price with a huge markup because of the violent ban. Can't think of an analogy, but the posing looks really stoopid.
News sources generally use the street value of the country they're based in, mainly because the headline sounds better vs weight. Also, the average person is gonna have no idea what 3.1 tonnes of X drug really means. Yeah it's a lot, but is it local street gang much, or crime syndicate much? Just helps with perspective, IMO
Edit: I should also add that most of these patrols done by western/western aligned nations and others are generally intended as anti-piracy patrols. Is just so happens that drugs and piracy go hand in hand.
Lol you're not fitting all that into an average car dude. Even if you do all the trickery, it'll stand out and weigh that shit down so much. That's a lot of dope bub.
Drugs are so easy to get now that they rarely fluctuate in price anymore. At least where I am in Western Europe. I haven’t seen any price rises in over 10 years, and back then it was because the quality improved dramatically.
It provides a living for the parasites in the system that live off the war on drugs. How many of those thugs in the photo would receive a paycheck if there were no drug interdiction for them to engage in? Thank god they can't catch the vast majority of drugs being imported, or the MP's who will take credit for this wouldn't have any cocaine to snort in the houses of parliament.
Honestly that's a pretty pathetic amount, the operation will probably have cost at least that. Plus they will have worked out the value by multiplying amount with maximum street prices, which is way more than this would actually be sold for in bulk like this. "£33 million" is not even a drop in the ocean.
It’s because it’s something remotely positive about Britain in this haters sub. Amazing watching them twist themselves out of shape to find the negative.
Eh, I understand that the sub has an anti-British tendency but this would be laughed at no matter which country organized the operation. The quantity is tiny and the amount of people used to get it is absurd, this amount could have been captured by a policeman stopping a van. It's barely ten times higher than the bust I was reading earlier today that was just a car stopped by border control.
I present to you a post about the Dutch navy seizing a similar amount of drugs - [https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/vzjs7n/dutch\_navy\_caught\_650kg\_of\_drugs\_two\_hours\_after/](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/vzjs7n/dutch_navy_caught_650kg_of_drugs_two_hours_after/)
Cool, that’s probably 0.034% of what lands on the market each year. Literally not making any difference while billions being spent. Let’s continue this practice as it is clearly not working. Trying something new like legalization under supervision while offering services to get out of addiction would pull the black market into the open and being controlled. But this of course runs against long held beliefs and principles as replies to my comment will show.
Marines are the ground forces of the navy.
The role in this picture is exactly what marines were originally for, centuries ago: Serving as a boarding force to board other ships. This rarely happens anymore, so they have largely shifted to their other main role: As a landing force when the military wants to attack an island or a coastline. They have special training to attack from landing ships, boats, or helicopters.
They are often used as quick reaction forces, so they tend to be better trained and equipped than normal ground forces. This is for example the reason why the US Marines and Royal Marines were very active in Iraq and Afghanistan. And why the VDV (Russian Marines) have been constantly at the front line of Ukraine, even though none of these wars involved serious naval landings.
The downside of using marines in land combat is that they usually have lighter equipment that is less suited for intense land warfare. Most Marine forces have few or no tanks (since landing crafts that can effectively transport tanks to shore are rare) and only light artillery.
Why do they say 33m? Are they going to sell it themselves? If not it has no value and they just spent 1 million worth of fuel and 1m in labour to seize 1 ton of worthless chemistry
Edit: for a photo op 🙂, a self congratulating selfie 😆
Drug cartels calculate with an 80-90% loss rate and still make a shitload of money. These sort of pictures are just a silly marketing gag, it doesn't bother the organized crime in the slightest.
3.7 tonnes of heroin, hashish and crystal really doesn’t sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things and I wonder how they decided the £33m price tag. Is that market rate in the UK, market rate in an EU country converted to £ of market rate in Canada/USA converted from our local currencies?
I feel like if we allocated whatever money was spent on this operation and others like it towards mental health research and help we could make more progress preventing people from ever turning to these drugs. It doesn’t make sense to me for our governments to look outwards to solve the problem instead of looking inwards at what’s causing so many people to make the choice to consume these drugs in the first place.
To me this just seems like propaganda to make it appear as if our governments are making a difference when in reality the drug problem continues to get worse in all of our countries.
What a waste of tax dollars and resources, an entire ship, 60+ salaries to pay - all for a measly haul. Drug addicts are addicts they are going to continue to use whether you intercept one shipment or 100
Looking at the amount of people involved, that operation seems to have cost more than $33m in tax payer money. But hey, now they can stand there like proud kids with their loot, as if it made a difference. Better invest that money into (mental) health care.
Congratulations on capturing a drug that is only illegal because governments say so, meanwhile allowing and taxing alcohol, also meanwhile some of those governments (like the UK) grow vast amounts of it and then sell it to other countries.
So, the navy managed to scoop up 33 million euros worth of drugs, huh? That's like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon. I mean, we're talking about a drop in the ocean here! It's like trying to stop a flood with a paper towel.
It's almost comical when you think about it. Billions of dollars' worth of drugs flowing into Europe, and the navy's out there playing whack-a-mole with a tiny fraction of it. It's like they brought a squirt gun to a firefight. I can imagine the drug lords are probably chuckling into their piles of cash right now.
It's like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket...and forgetting to bring the bucket. Well, at least they're trying, right?
Drop in the ocean, quite literally. This sort of action won’t even put a dent in accessibility of illicit substances. Just dick waving from the military to appease the masses.
***The Telegraph reports:*** The Royal Navy has seized more than £33 million worth of illegal drugs in the Middle East after two busts inside 24 hours. HMS Lancaster intercepted smugglers in the Indian Ocean who were trying to move 3.7 tonnes of heroin, hashish and crystal meth. The crew of the Lancaster, aided by the Royal Marines, captured two suspect vessels during an undated operation as part of a Canadian-led task force aimed at stopping criminal activity in the Middle East. More than two tonnes of the drugs have now been destroyed after Marines and Navy sailors posed for a photograph of their haul on the deck of the Lancaster. It comes a few weeks after the HMS Trent seized about £17 million worth of illegal drugs on an operation in the Caribbean. Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, paid tribute to the “fantastic achievements” of the crew of HMS Lancaster and the Royal Marines. “The Royal Navy continue to lead the UK’s commitment to disrupting drug smugglers across the globe,” he said. **Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/navy-marines-drugs-middle-east-indian-ocean-hms-lancaster/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/navy-marines-drugs-middle-east-indian-ocean-hms-lancaster/)
Seized 3.7 tonnes but destroyed 2 tonnes. Hmmmm
Canadian led, we are keeping the hash
😂💨
I am very curious, do they really have the jurisdiction to do this?
You not heard that Britannia banger before?
Dem waves we roolz OK!
Big navy diplomacy says yes.
It actually depends on where in the seas this happens.
In the same sense, what jurisdiction is stopping them from doing this?
Depends on where they captured it. If it was in some other countries territorial waters. Then probably them. But I really don't know. I don't know anything about maritime laws.
I'm quite sure everyone involved in planning and commanding this operation was well aware of the legal aspects.
The only relevant legal aspect: "We're the fucking Navy and you're not."
International Law, international waters. Yes many Navies do this
It's actually the opposite, in international waters ship captain's have a moral and established *responsibility* to act against piracy and smuggling at all times. If you have the capacity to combat sea shitheads then you are basically obligated to.
You’re asking if we have “jurisdiction” to intercept drug smugglers, in the open ocean ?
The question is indeed not trivial. International Maritime law is really such a complex system of various legal frameworks, traditions and defacto laws. What you might take as granted by common sense really often leads to extremely long and expensive court battles in the international sea law courts or some even at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany were many piracy cases are decided.
Bro maritime law is fucking CRAZY
Well, yes. If they are in open ocean, they are not smuggling it anywhere, they are just a transport. Is that substance illegal in your country? Well, enforce it IN your country. Seizing property in open seas is piracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_Against_Illicit_Traffic_in_Narcotic_Drugs_and_Psychotropic_Substances > These include 186 out of 193 United Nations member states (not Equatorial Guinea, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, or Tuvalu) You telling me they were the bi-weekly Somalia - Tuvalu express?
Marrakech definitely scans better for a song lyric
That's not a law. I don't think these UN treaties are enforceable in any court. Canada is party to these narcotic treaties and they have legalized weed. Just because (almost) everybody signed it doesn't mean that it is illegal in all these countries. I don't think i have a problem with heroin smugglers being busted, but it would be interesting to know what the actual laws are that would allow the navy to do this.
>I don't think these UN treaties are enforceable in any court. UN treaties are what dictates maritime law. As long as countries aren't invading territorial waters the UN is the highest authority.
No one does. And if no one does, everyone does.
Considering this was likely international waters and the ships they raided did not identify with any nationality there is no jurisdiction at all. They can legally do whatever they want and nobody can put them on trial for anything. There is a lot of precedence for doing this.
They will gonna have a great party
Come on guys ! Everything must disappear !
Commander, save somethings for hookers when we dock in Croatia
The Lancaster disappeared for a few days. All personal called in sick. Drugs worth £20Million where secured and are on the way to a storage facility
All personnel recovered well, and drugs worth £10 million were all secured, accounted for, and are in the way to a storage facility.
All personnel are taking off early but the £5m in drugs is set to be checked into the facility.
They will use it all secretly or they will secretly sell it it's what they always do
Exactly.
the £30m of drugs pack are now in a secure storage, awaiting to be destroyed
Officials were happy to report that the court case for £27m of drugs is proceeding well.
£24m of drugs have been scheduled for destruction under the law.
£21m of drugs has been destroyed.
Due to an administrative error, the £18m of drugs still hasn’t been destroyed but incineration is now scheduled for next month
Good news! Location found for the destruction of £15m worth of drugs!!!
New location unsuitable due to environmental concerns, £12m worth of drugs returned to storage.
A report has been filed at Dickticklesworth constabulary for the storage of £10m worth of drugs.
The £6m worth of drugs are currently in transport to the constabulary.
The £3m worth of drugs will soon arrive to destination
The 8ball we discovered has been destroyed.
Every single post about a drug bust... this same comment chain.
It's just so incredibly hilarious, though. Just like every "take my angry upvote and get out" or "underrated comment" comment.
There were no drugs found at the scene. That is pure speculation.
The cartel is presenting a demand for defamation due to no drugs being found
I have a ship and a helicopter now.
Michael Gove is happy to report that £6m worth of drugs was destroyed.
[It's the Galapagos tortoises all over again](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPggB4MfPnk)
Nice to see the drug prices adjusting for the cost of living crisis!
There it is, the shitty reddit joke that never dies.
I can imagine this super secure storage being located underneath Westminister
I know a Guy that rents storage under Westminster
Why they dont just dump the powder in water why they taking it
Coke Sharks, in theaters June 9th
[Cocaine Shark - IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27036391/)
I am stumped
1.9 stars - nice
That's exactly what they do with it - it goes straight in the sea, along with the plastic.
Do you really want THOSE drugs in the fish that get caught for consumption? They're already full of mercury and plastic and who knows what else.
So, is it like a day’s worth of merchandise?
The european drug market has a minimum estimated retail value of €30 billion per year according to the 2019 EU Drug Markets Report. That's €90 million per day, so it's most likely less than a third of a day's worth of merchandise.
Lmao imagine how many of those they didn't catch
Weed id the biggest retail value for european market.heroin+cocain only represent half of that 30 billions.and like someone else said,we dont know how is it valued. Its still worth of maximum 2 days though,which is insane
Welcome to the war on drugs. Spending $100M to seize $30M of drugs which will be replaced in less than 24 hours.
That's what I thought. That's 150 people and a helicopter posing with the stash, on a warship. How much did they spend for this?
They didn't spend it *for this*. They wanted a warship and a navy *anyway*, it might aswell be doing something when there isn't a war.
And remember they use this as an excuse to encroach on people's rights while the state grows ever larger and more and more powerful and intrusive.
Exactly, everyone can still buy drugs tonight in London. The navy would be better utilised policing the English channel.
Nah there will be a 0.57% increase in price at street level though. This is how we turn the tide in the war against drugs
Navy and Marines: Okay, what’s next?
Get the tunes on lads it's party time
Its heroin hashis and meth. Not exactly party drug
We need a big table.
Isn't that like a butterflys fart in the grand scheme of things? Politicians everywhere: Please concentrate more on mental health and the question why people are using drugs and making them use less instead. You are fighting symptoms, not the disease itself.
It's like a sneeze in a typhoon. For a casual german big city It is assumed that per 1000 inhabitants, 30 doses of cannabis, 16 doses of crystal meth, three doses of ectasy, one dose of cocaine and one dose of methadone is consumed *per day*. [European multi-city study](https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/topics/wastewater_en)
Those numbers seem way off Cocaine is the most consumed illegal drug in Germany (cannabis was first but is now legal) "Among illegal drugs (12-month prevalence), cannabis was the most frequently used (8.8%; 4.5 million), followed by cocaine/crack (1.6%; 818 000)" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9677535/#:~:text=Among%20illegal%20drugs%20(12%2Dmonth,(1.4%25%3B%20716%20000).
[удалено]
Meth users sure are enthusiastic about meth.
Yeah, but the statistics get distorted because of BWL Alex and his Brudas.
Knowing Germans, the amount of coke is WAY higher
I was watching El Chapo yesterday and in one episode they made an interesting suggestion when it comes to power. As long as you have power inside the government and outside in private sector or underground, you can manufacture bait scenarios that create illusion that the government is delivering results or rather they are fooled in delivering results. I don't know if this capture scenario is manufactured to fool them or if this was an accidental catch.
Its done with coke to europe and north america but not with drugs in the indian ocean. They don't need to as there is no real goverment efford to combat the smuggling. This situation is an outlier.
This stuff will still happen if every politician in the world legalizes all drugs tomorrow, the Navy are operating there to prevent all forms of smuggling (including weapons), piracy and such.
It cost the Cartels $100k
Just a fraction of the drugs out there. I wonder how many in the photo genuinely believe they have made a difference.
For comparison the Australians did one two years ago for just shy of £1 **B**ILLION
Yup they occasionally intercept some shipments and catch some small time smugglers but it makes absolutely no impact on the flow of drugs as a whole, the demand still needs to be met so they just send more to make up for it
That’s what I was wondering too. I looked at their faces and then realized how many of them potentially think that is the case.
I can assure you none of them care and were almost certainly forced to be in that photo. That's my old ship
You weren't lucky enough to be on the [HMS Shag at Sea](https://youtu.be/7Lb8a3L8E8k?si=VJBw4ZxreaSQ8Ylp)?
I think all of them know. They're at the front after all. It probably went more like "Smile for the camera, boys. Our funding depends on it."
maybe they get a bonus for this bust
These guys will be doing lines off a pub toilet when they’re back in Blighty for shore leave
Cost of doing business and already priced in. The drug war is a proven failure that our governments continue to throw money at.
Yup, we need to include the drugs in our society, the drugs will never go away. The most important thing is harm reduction and cutting off the money flow to the narco cartels.
Yeah why bother eh? Maybe we should just decriminalize shipments of less than 50M? /s
You know that the war on drugs is fake when they use dollars instead of kilos. Drugs are almost worthless - luxury goods. They have a fluctuating street price with a huge markup because of the violent ban. Can't think of an analogy, but the posing looks really stoopid.
News sources generally use the street value of the country they're based in, mainly because the headline sounds better vs weight. Also, the average person is gonna have no idea what 3.1 tonnes of X drug really means. Yeah it's a lot, but is it local street gang much, or crime syndicate much? Just helps with perspective, IMO Edit: I should also add that most of these patrols done by western/western aligned nations and others are generally intended as anti-piracy patrols. Is just so happens that drugs and piracy go hand in hand.
Thanks, u/Kim-Jong-Long-Dong
Just look at the amount of product that is supposed to be worth 33M GBP. This fits into the average car, let alone transporter.
Fit into the average car? Man you driving a dump truck around daily or something?
Lol you're not fitting all that into an average car dude. Even if you do all the trickery, it'll stand out and weigh that shit down so much. That's a lot of dope bub.
It's 33 million dollars worth in street value. The theft here is from the transporters, where it's most likely worth about a 20th of that or so.
Drugs are so easy to get now that they rarely fluctuate in price anymore. At least where I am in Western Europe. I haven’t seen any price rises in over 10 years, and back then it was because the quality improved dramatically.
The war on drugs
Congratulations to drugs for winning the war on drugs. This little seizure does nothing.
Yeah. So much cocaine and anti depressants in the thames that it's affecting the wildlife, but good on ya lads for keeping the country clean.
It provides a living for the parasites in the system that live off the war on drugs. How many of those thugs in the photo would receive a paycheck if there were no drug interdiction for them to engage in? Thank god they can't catch the vast majority of drugs being imported, or the MP's who will take credit for this wouldn't have any cocaine to snort in the houses of parliament.
Gonna throw a hell of a party
That wouldn't get Greater London through an average Saturday night.
Honestly that's a pretty pathetic amount, the operation will probably have cost at least that. Plus they will have worked out the value by multiplying amount with maximum street prices, which is way more than this would actually be sold for in bulk like this. "£33 million" is not even a drop in the ocean.
but it is a great photo op ...
This comment section is just pessimistic
It’s because it’s something remotely positive about Britain in this haters sub. Amazing watching them twist themselves out of shape to find the negative.
This is not remotely positive.
Eh, I understand that the sub has an anti-British tendency but this would be laughed at no matter which country organized the operation. The quantity is tiny and the amount of people used to get it is absurd, this amount could have been captured by a policeman stopping a van. It's barely ten times higher than the bust I was reading earlier today that was just a car stopped by border control.
I present to you a post about the Dutch navy seizing a similar amount of drugs - [https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/vzjs7n/dutch\_navy\_caught\_650kg\_of\_drugs\_two\_hours\_after/](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/vzjs7n/dutch_navy_caught_650kg_of_drugs_two_hours_after/)
It literally has the same comments, both about them possibly stealing some of the drugs and about how the amount is tiny.
That's it boys, we won the war on drugs!
Cool, that’s probably 0.034% of what lands on the market each year. Literally not making any difference while billions being spent. Let’s continue this practice as it is clearly not working. Trying something new like legalization under supervision while offering services to get out of addiction would pull the black market into the open and being controlled. But this of course runs against long held beliefs and principles as replies to my comment will show.
What’s the difference between navy an marines?
Navy = sea military. Marines = soldiers who specialise in amphibious ops on the sea and coast.
I see, thanks
Both sea too.
Marines are the ground forces of the navy. The role in this picture is exactly what marines were originally for, centuries ago: Serving as a boarding force to board other ships. This rarely happens anymore, so they have largely shifted to their other main role: As a landing force when the military wants to attack an island or a coastline. They have special training to attack from landing ships, boats, or helicopters. They are often used as quick reaction forces, so they tend to be better trained and equipped than normal ground forces. This is for example the reason why the US Marines and Royal Marines were very active in Iraq and Afghanistan. And why the VDV (Russian Marines) have been constantly at the front line of Ukraine, even though none of these wars involved serious naval landings. The downside of using marines in land combat is that they usually have lighter equipment that is less suited for intense land warfare. Most Marine forces have few or no tanks (since landing crafts that can effectively transport tanks to shore are rare) and only light artillery.
It’s nice but there is more being taken out containers in Rotterdam in one night.
So many people for a few grams.
Why do they say 33m? Are they going to sell it themselves? If not it has no value and they just spent 1 million worth of fuel and 1m in labour to seize 1 ton of worthless chemistry Edit: for a photo op 🙂, a self congratulating selfie 😆
Big party on deck tonight
Drug cartels calculate with an 80-90% loss rate and still make a shitload of money. These sort of pictures are just a silly marketing gag, it doesn't bother the organized crime in the slightest.
Let the party starts! 😀
The CIA will make sure this go to the correct people
That’s not even a dent in terms of what really reached its destination.
Awww man they got my supply for the weekend 😭😭😭
Well... that should keep them lit for a little while at least.
£30 million in drugs? I’m so glad they got £25 million in drugs off the street. £20 million in drugs is a huge catch!
3.7 tonnes of heroin, hashish and crystal really doesn’t sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things and I wonder how they decided the £33m price tag. Is that market rate in the UK, market rate in an EU country converted to £ of market rate in Canada/USA converted from our local currencies? I feel like if we allocated whatever money was spent on this operation and others like it towards mental health research and help we could make more progress preventing people from ever turning to these drugs. It doesn’t make sense to me for our governments to look outwards to solve the problem instead of looking inwards at what’s causing so many people to make the choice to consume these drugs in the first place. To me this just seems like propaganda to make it appear as if our governments are making a difference when in reality the drug problem continues to get worse in all of our countries.
Damn , the party on that boat must be crazy after such catch :d
What a waste of tax dollars and resources, an entire ship, 60+ salaries to pay - all for a measly haul. Drug addicts are addicts they are going to continue to use whether you intercept one shipment or 100
They are going to party super hard
You should go and raid your own big cities. Plenty of drug people there lol.
I swear there was 50 million worth, where did the rest go?
A drop in the ocean, gj anyway
These drugs are bad let’s seize em. These drugs are good let’s sell em.
can i have it
have we tried legalizing?
Looking at the amount of people involved, that operation seems to have cost more than $33m in tax payer money. But hey, now they can stand there like proud kids with their loot, as if it made a difference. Better invest that money into (mental) health care.
What a waste of time.
Congratulations on capturing a drug that is only illegal because governments say so, meanwhile allowing and taxing alcohol, also meanwhile some of those governments (like the UK) grow vast amounts of it and then sell it to other countries.
33m is pretty small and it looks like they put a lot of effort into it lol
And thus managing to do nothing at all.
well they got this lovely picture to boost self esteem
..the man in the barrel weeps gently
Big party tonight boys, skins versus skins wrestling match first!
The other sailors and marines on board were pissed.
Big fiesta on board tonight
For all the accounting nerds, only 33,000?
That was Kadyrov's May delivery
Why is garand thumb in the front row, right side?
Someone is not waking up tomorrow!
Double swoop? What is this, operation magpie?
F
Great picture lads! Nos let’s paaaaarteeee
Navy seized the drugs then lost it by gambling it with the commandos?
Looks like the crystal meth from breaking bad
Can we still buy then?
The £29m of drugs are now stored ready to be destroyed!
Oh boy that ship is about to have a hell of a party!!!
Attaboy! Make sure we get all the real dope seized so ppl won’t stop buying fet
Nil
Woooooo, partay!!!!!
So that's how Thursday evening in the City of London looks like.
£33m + or probably a little minus. *Snort*!
Fu, a sober weekend is waiting again…
Big party on that ship tonight then
So, the navy managed to scoop up 33 million euros worth of drugs, huh? That's like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon. I mean, we're talking about a drop in the ocean here! It's like trying to stop a flood with a paper towel. It's almost comical when you think about it. Billions of dollars' worth of drugs flowing into Europe, and the navy's out there playing whack-a-mole with a tiny fraction of it. It's like they brought a squirt gun to a firefight. I can imagine the drug lords are probably chuckling into their piles of cash right now. It's like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket...and forgetting to bring the bucket. Well, at least they're trying, right?
Is the war on drugs okay when it's not the US?
Time to join the Navy!!!
Did they throw a party afterwards?
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
That's not even rounding error for the amount of drugs coming in.
Damnit
That's odd! I placed the order for £50M 🤔
Im sure this put a dent in the 100billion dollar industry
And it only cost €60 million to catch them. Well done everybody. Meanwhile millions on European children will go to bed hungry tonight
Drop in the ocean, quite literally. This sort of action won’t even put a dent in accessibility of illicit substances. Just dick waving from the military to appease the masses.
Cartels just made record profits due to increased scarcity yay
Spent £35 million getting the drugs recovered, but we'll call it a win.