A massive luxury yacht which had more than £160 million worth of cocaine seized onboard is going up for auction in Wales. The MY Kahu 120ft superyacht is set to go up for auction in Newport next week, months after it was seized off the coast of Plymouth with around 2,000kg of cocaine on board in a major organised crime probe.
The UK National Crime Agency has instructed Wilsons Auctions to manage the sale of the vessel, which will be sold unreserved meaning it will go to the highest bidder of the auction. Currently berthed at Torquay Marina in England, MY Kahu was built in 1979 for the Royal New Zealand Navy and was converted in 2010 into a pleasure craft. It has since travelled the globe including making multiple transpacific and transatlantic voyages.
The vessel was intercepted heading for the Caribbean in international waters by the National Crime Agency, UK Border Force and Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers in September 2021 with the help of intelligence from Operation Ironside, a three-year covert AFP-led investigation into organised crime syndicates.
