The Story of How a Crew of Sailors Were Tricked by a Fox

When Brazilian Daniel Guerra was hired to crew aboard the British yacht Rich Harvest and sail her from their home country to the UK, Guerra thought his dreams had come true. The 43-year-old sailor, who wanted to become a yacht captain and find work in Europe, replied to a job ad from an online sailing recruitment agency. Together with Rodrigo Dantas, 32, another Brazillian sailor, and a French captain, the crew were to sail the privately owned boat across the Atlantic, and cast off on August 4, 2017, almost two years after it had arrived in Brazil and begun receiving interior refurbishments.

Today, the yacht and her owner, George Saul, are the subject of a BBC podcast, Finding Mr. Fox.

Guerra told the BBC that his employer, Rich Harvest’s British owner, George Saul, was “a smiling, friendly figure, who did not insist on formalities,” and encouraged the crew to call him by his nickname, Fox.

“I used to work on some boats, and the owners were old, super-demanding, super-rude, and talked down to me,” Dantas said. “He was like, very cool, very friendly.” Even Dantas’s parents were impressed by Fox after meeting him to assure themselves of their son’s safety on such a long voyage.

But Dantas’s parents weren’t alone in wanting to check out the yacht and her owner. Before departing Brazil, the boat was searched for drugs by the Brazilian police and a sniffer dog. Nothing was found, and the Rich Harvest was free to cast off.

Guerra and Dantas assumed it was a routine check; “They had heard stories about cocaine being planted on boats,” and were happy to know they were in the clear.

Two weeks into the voyage, the boat developed engine trouble and the crew pulled into Cape Verde for repairs. The sailors were happy for the opportunity to explore the islands while the work was being completed.

During its stay in port, the boat again underwent a police search. Guerra told the BBC he didn’t think anything of it, as nothing had been found in Brazil. This time, however, the search was more thorough and revealed nearly “0.2 tonnes of cocaine — worth an estimated £100m ($134m) if sold on Europe’s streets.” The drugs had been hidden beneath false floors in the yacht’s interior.

The sailors were arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking, while Fox himself was safely ensconced in the UK after having flown home earlier from Brazil. After a trial in March 2018, the crew were each sentenced to 10 years in jail, despite having argued that they’d known nothing about the boat, or its owner before replying to Fox’s job advertisement.

Brazilian police believe Fox was the mastermind of the operation; his yacht was “first drawn to their attention by a tip-off from the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).” Fox was eventually arrested in Italy in August 2018, and was to be extradited to Brazil, but he remained free due to slow paperwork.

Meanwhile news of the crew’s troubles and appeals for their release had reached the ears of Robert Delbos, “a man who was alleged to be an accomplice of Fox.” Delbos, 71, is a convicted drug trafficker, who was jailed for 12 years in 1988 after attempting to smuggle 1.5 tons of cannabis into the UK. Delbos had been seen with Rich Harvest in Brazil, where the boat was undergoing her renovations.

Delbos was also arrested, though claimed he knew nothing about the drugs. However, after hearing of Guerra and Dantas’s situation, he believed Fox had violated the “drug traffickers’ code of ethics” by engaging innocent sailors as mules.

“This is completely beyond the pale. I mean, you don’t do this,” Delbos told the BBC in an interview. “He was a stupid man who was greedy. Instead of paying the crew properly and getting himself a professional, bloody smuggling crew — he hired four innocent guys.”

As doubts about the sailors’ guilt grew, their families began campaigning on their behalf. Their convictions were overturned in 2019 and they were allowed to return to Brazil. Fox, however, it appears, is currently living a “normal life in Norwich, running his own property business and contributing to the local community as a Round Table Club member. And while Guerra and Dantas want to see Fox hauled before the courts in Brazil, the NCA has said, “There is ‘currently no warrant in place to arrest the subject, and we are not aware of any offences he may have committed in the UK,” adding that Brazilian police would need to file a fresh extradition request if they wanted to pursue the case.

Read the full story here.