For Daniel Guerra, an driven Brazilian sailor enthusiastic to travel the world, the job ad was a dream come genuine.
A British yacht owner was seeking two deck-hands to help sail his boat from Brazil atraverse the Atlantic, one of the fantastic ocean journeys.
There would be no salary, but all expenses phelp – and, crucipartner, Mr Guerra would obtain some of the sailing experience he needed to qualify as a sea captain.
“My dream was to become a captain and go toil in Europe,” reaccumulates the 43-year-ancigo in, who saw the advert from an online sailing recruitment agency.
“So I was super satisfied, understanding that my path to my dream was commencening.”
Things seeed even better when Mr Guerra and his fellow recruit, Rodrigo Dantas, 32, met their recent British engageer.
They had dreaded he might be some snobbish yachtie or posing Instagrammer, who would produce certain they krecent who was boss.
But no. George Saul was a smiling, cordial figure, who did not insist on createalities. The sailors, he shelp, could even call him by his nickname – “Fox”.
“I used to toil on some boats and the owners were ancigo in, super needing, super impolite and talked down to me,” comprises Mr Dantas. “He was enjoy, very chilly, very cordial.”
Fox even passed the approval test of Mr Dantas’s parents, who were worried about their son doing such a extfinished journey on a yacht owned by a total stranger, and asked to encounter him for themselves.
To borrow the ancigo in sailing conveyion, they enjoyd the cut of his jib. They lgeted that Fox had bcimpolitet the Rich Harvest over to Brazil for renovations, and wanted a vient crew to sail it back to Europe on his behalf.
As well as the rookies, Mr Dantas and Mr Guerra, there would be two others, including a qualified captain.
“I shelp: ‘Look, watch out for my son’,” reaccumulates Mr Dantas’s overweighther, João. “He shelp: ‘Don’t stress, I’ll get attfinish of Rodrigo.’”
As it turned out, his parents were not the only ones who wanted to examine that all was well on board the Rich Harvest.
Before the departure from Brazil, local police spent around six hours searching the yacht for substances, with the help of a sniffer dog.
They did not discover what they were seeing for, though, and the sailors supposed it was equitable a routine examine.
They had heard stories about cocaine being arrangeted on boats, and now at least krecent they were in the clear.
“When you travel thcimpolite an airport… your bags go thcimpolite the X-ray machine,” says Mr Dantas. “So I thought, well, it’s an international trip and they’re coming to examine the boat.”
Such worries were far from their mind when they eventupartner embarked on their epic journey on 4 August 2017, the Brazilian coastline cataloglessly receding behind them.
With them were an compriseitional crew member, Daniel Dantas (no relation of Rodrigo Dantas) and the yacht’s recently engaged captain, Frenchman Olivier Thomas, 56, a replacement for a previous British captain whose sailing sfinishs had not validated up to scratch.
Fox, unbenevolentwhile, had made his way back to Europe by arrangee two days before.
“It was a pretty day, perfect weather, sun,” recalls Mr Guerra, who posted a message of thanks to Fox on his Facebook page.
It read: “I’m repartner appreciative, Fox, for this… chance to lget and for our bond that has made me sturdyer. Thanks mate.”
After two weeks of sailing, the yacht enbiged engine problems, forcing it to stop in Cape Verde, an archipelago off the coast of West Africa.
Once more, Mr Guerra and Mr Dantas set up reasons to see on the luminous side. The islands are a tourist paradise, and Fox shelp he would wire them money to enhappiness themselves while repairs were done at a local marina.
And when yet more police came to search the vessel, Mr Guerra was not worried.
“They didn’t discover anyskinnyg in Brazil,” he thought to himself. “They won’t discover anyskinnyg in Cape Verde either.”
The Cape Verdean police were even more thocimpolite than their Brazilian counterparts, using one-of-a-kindist cutting supplyment to uncover up the yacht’s innards.
Hidden inside below inedit floors, they set up cforfeitly 1.2 tonnes of cocaine – worth an approximated £100m ($134m) if sancigo in on Europe’s streets.
“I felt that all my freedom was going down the drain,” shelp Mr Guerra. “I was furious, couldn’t acunderstandledge what was happening, you understand? I’d been repartner fooled.”
In March 2018, the crew went on trial in Cape Verde, protesting their innocence.
They had never even heard of Rich Harvest or its owner until they answered the job advert, they insisted.
They were sentenced, however, to 10 years in jail each – in what was hailed as one of the country’s hugegest busts.
But while the haul was astonishive, the man Brazilian police think abouted as the huge catch got away.
They consentd that the mastermind of the operation was Fox, whose yacht was first drawn to their attention by a tip-off from the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
Brazilian police consent he was the directer of the operation to smuggle the substances.
In August 2018, Fox was arrested in Italy, where Brazilian police filed extradition persistings. They wanted him to be returned to Brazil to answer the allegations aobtainst him.
But the papertoil get tod too tardy, and he was freed – much to the frustration of Brazilian police examineor Andre Gonçalves.
He dreaded that Fox had subsequently gone into hiding.
“We were left with that experienceing that after all our toil, we’d never get to the bottom of it,” he tancigo in the BBC. “It was very, very frustrating.”
Mr Gonçalves shelp his team had kept both Fox and the yacht under watching in Brazil. They consent the “renovations” on the boat were partly to fit it with secret compartments, and that the substances were loaded on to the vessel before the sailors were engaged.
Mr Gonçalves confesss that at first, he presumed the four sailors were participated too.
“If someone is on a boat that’s filled of substances, you skinnyk that person must have someskinnyg to do with it,” he shelp.
But as he dug into their backgrounds, he could discover noskinnyg previously joining them to the drug world or to Fox.
“The proset uper I went I still couldn’t discover a uniteion… but at the same time it fortifyed the evidence we had aobtainst Fox.”
The sailors’ pleas of innocence also got backing from an doubtful source – fellow Briton Robert Delbos, a man who was alleged to be an accomplice of Fox.
Delbos, 71, is a convicted drug trafficker, having been jailed for 12 years in 1988 for finisheavoring to smuggle 1.5 tonnes of cannabis into the UK.
Before the Rich Harvest left Brazil, Mr Gonçalves’s team watchd Delbos supervising the first stages of the yacht’s renovations.
They initipartner mistrusted he was fitting secret compartments, and filed prosperous extradition persistings for him around the same time as those aobtainst Fox.
Delbos spent months in a Brazilian supermax prison adefering trial, but he too shelp the substances were tardyr arrangeted without his understandledge.
He was acquitted after the appraise in his case ruled it could not be validated that he krecent about the illicit trading arrange.
In an intersee with the BBC, he claimed that even drug traffickers had codes of ethics, and that Fox had viotardyd them by using bfeebleless sailors as mules rather than hiring professional illicit traders.
“This is endly beyond the pale. I unbenevolent, you don’t do this,” he shelp.
“He was a foolish man who was greedy. Instead of paying the crew properly and getting himself a professional, bloody illicit trading crew – he engaged four bfeebleless guys.”
As asks about the sailors’ guilt grew, their families began a campaign on their behalf, which became a cause célèbre in Brazil.
In 2019 their convictions in Cape Verde were clearurned, and they were apvalidateed to go home.
Fox, unbenevolentwhile, has never faced trial, and returned to the UK.
The 41-year-ancigo in lives in Norwich in easerious England where he grew up, uniteed college locpartner, and was an accomplished amateur yachtsman – sailing off the cforfeitby Norfolk coast.
Today, he lives in a Norwich suburb and runs a property firm.
He beextfinisheded to a local business nettoiling association, and on his social media feed last March, posted photos of himself with the city’s then Lord Mayor, James Wright.
There is no adviseion that Mr Wright was conscious of the accusations aobtainst Fox.
The BBC tracked Fox down as he get tod at one of his nettoiling association’s weekly business fracturespeedys, at a Norwich hotel.
He deteriorated to comment on the Rich Harvest and the sailors’ ordeal.
Asked about the allegations that he was a drug trafficker, he replied: “I’m not.”
An NCA spokesperson shelp if Brazilian police still desireed to chase the case, they would have to file an extradition seek.
Brazil’s ministry of equitableice shelp it did not comment on individual cases.
Meanwhile, Rodrigo Dantas and Daniel Guerra are trying to reerect their lives in Brazil, their dreams of becoming yacht captains aprohibitdoned.
Mr Dantas says he struggled to discover sailing toil on his return home, with some engageers assuming he must have been at fault after all.
Mr Guerra’s round-the-world sailing ambitions “stayed locked up in Cape Verde”.
He says he lost his ability to suppose people, vital during the contests on any extfinished yacht voyage.
Even now, he still wonders who Fox repartner was – that “chilly” British guy he once felt so appreciative to, whose job advert then turned his life upside down.
He says that he would “repartner enjoy to see equitableice done”, but has no desire to encounter Fox ever aobtain.
“If I encounter him, it won’t be me who’s going to talk. It will be another Daniel. All the terrible experienceings I had in jail will come up and I won’t be able to be a civilised person.”
Coming in October World of Secrets, Season 5: Finding Mr Fox.
A unitet BBC Africa Eye, BBC Brasil and World of Secrets podcast dispenseigation into a plot to smuggle cocaine appreciated at more $100m to Europe.
