When Sue Warner’s father asked her to follow a strange man, she had no idea she would help foil an international drug-smuggling operation.
It was June 1983, and the weary-looking walker would turn out to be one of the masterminds of a plot to ship three tonnes of cannabis, worth £7 million, into the UK via the rural Pembrokeshire coast.
Yet what the smugglers hadn’t anticipated was that Sue’s farming family and their fellow Welsh locals were so eagle-eyed they would play a major role in bringing about the gang’s downfall.
Sue, who was then 19, tells the Daily Mail: ‘There wasn’t a huge amount of excitement in our local area and this became very exciting indeed.
‘I felt like it was a Famous Five adventure that had just dropped on our doorstep.’
Now 61, the widowed mother-of-four appeared in the recent BBC One Wales two-part documentary Cannabis Cove: Operation Seal Bay, which retells the incredible story that involved her family.
Her father, John Weston-Arnold, had been contacted by local farmers Simon Barnes and Gary Yates, asking for help.
‘Simon was working on the farm south of us, which belonged to Gary,’ Sue recalls.
Sue Warner and her family helped uncover a £7million drugs smuggling plot in Pembrokeshire, Wales, in 1983
Inside the bunker that was found on the beach at Traeth Cell Hywel, south of Ceibwr Bay in Pembrokeshire, west Wales, in 1983. It was built by a drug smuggling gang who planned to stash £7million worth of cannabis there
‘Gary said, “John, can you come quickly? I’ve just apprehended someone walking across my fields and I’m not happy. It could be suspicious.”
‘So Dad and I jumped in our farm truck and went a mile and a half down to our neighbour.
‘When we drove up the track, the man was there talking to them. My father jumped out.
‘They were talking to this small, thin, rather weary-looking gentleman with a rucksack.
‘He was saying, “My feet are sore. I’m really tired. I just want to get off the path. Sorry if I’m trespassing – I just want to get to Newport.”
‘Gary said, “Ok then, be off with you,” but then Dad turned to me and said, “Follow him.”
‘I said, “What? In a truck?” It seemed totally bizarre but exciting.
‘So off I went. I overtook him and could see the direction he was headed before he disappeared.’
John Weston-Arnold (third from right) with his wife Diane (far right), his daughter Kim (second from left) and friends inside the bunker on the beach at Traeth Cell Hywel
The hatch to the bunker, on the beach at Traeth Cell Hywel, south of Ceibwr Bay in Pembrokeshire, west Wales
British man Robin Boswell was the ringleader of the drug smuggling plot. He was jailed for ten years
Danish actor-turned-trafficker Soeren Berg-Arnbak
Police circulated the description Sue’s family had given and made local enquiries near where she last saw him.
The Daily Mail’s report of the drugs bust
Within hours, a resident spotted a man matching the description hiding in grass.
Police arrested him. He was Robin Boswell, a man already known to British customs for suspected drug smuggling.
Sue’s wasn’t the only family noticing unfamiliar men on the cliff paths 400 feet above the coves though.
A few miles away in Newport, strangers flashed £50 notes – more than some locals earned in two months – ordering Lobster Thermidor and buying rounds in the pub.
Flashy cars appeared: a Porsche, a GTI convertible, even a white Rolls-Royce.
Before Boswell’s arrest, Sue’s family had already begun playing detective.
Her father and mother Diane tried to strike up conversation with another suspicious man seen on the cliff paths.
Sue Warner on her family’s dairy farm in Pembrokeshire in the 1980s
Farmers John and Diane Weston-Arnold, the parents of Sue Warner. The family helped snare the drug smugglers
Sue smiles: ‘Dad was trying to talk to him. Mum was thinking, “Oh God. He’s got really cold, chilly eyes.”
‘She didn’t feel comfortable and was thinking, “Will you just shut up, John.”‘
John even camped out overnight on the cliffs with a friend to try to catch others.
Sue adds: ‘The next morning he came home and said, “We were terrified. We heard footsteps on the path.” But it turned out to be our neighbour looking for a lost sheep!’
‘The network is so fast and strong in Pembrokeshire that we knew something was going on.’
Along the coastline, fishermen reported tampered lobster pots.
Fisherman Andy Burgess and his daughter spotted what looked like a rock in a cove known locally as Seal Bay – but it was a huge tarpaulin hiding expensive boating equipment.
A stranger on the beach appeared and told Andy he was on a ‘secret expedition’ to Greenland. Suspicious, Andy alerted the coastguard.
Sue’s mother, Diane, on a tractor on the family’s dairy farm
The Weston-Arnold family farm in Pembrokeshire, Wales
When they arrived, the coastguard and police found more equipment there and at another beach – where an even stranger discovery was made the very same day Boswell was arrested.
Local farmer Peter Smith, part of a volunteer group searching the area, spotted a slat of wood buried flush into the beach. Beneath the pebbles was a yacht hatch with levers.
John Havard, a lifeguard volunteer, recalls: ‘I’d seen these hatches before. I turned the levers and it popped open.
‘There was a hiss and a strong smell of fibreglass resin. We lifted the door and I thought it might be a portal to another dimension!
‘I jumped down and was taken aback by how surreal it was.’
Inside, a secret bunker had been carved out of the stone. It contained pristine boating equipment, engines ready for use, a rucksack and empty Pot Noodle containers.
John says: ‘You could see the cliff face in the crevice. The floor was all fibreglassed over and the roof was marine ply, fibreglassed and sealed.
‘It was a wonderful piece of engineering. It must have taken them a long time. Very impressive.’
Inside the cavern underneath the beach at Traeth Cell Hywel
Locals described it as ‘straight out of a James Bond film.’
Police strongly suspected drug smugglers were behind the strange find and launched Operation Seal Bay to find them.
A year earlier, a headteacher walking his dog near Newport had found a parcel washed ashore containing cannabis worth £80,000, traced back to Lebanon.
The cave was likely intended as a stash point.
Police noticed that Boswell’s boots were coated in the same fibreglass resin used in the bunker.
Further investigation revealed he was the son of a wealthy Royal Navy officer, educated at Marlborough College, and suspected of smuggling drugs before.
Soon after, a poacher reported a speeding white Range Rover.
Police intercepted it on the M4 and arrested the driver, Kenneth Dewar – also covered in resin and giving officers the same London address – despite insisting he didn’t know Boswell.
The stash that was found inside the bunker on the beach in west Wales
Officers then tracked a man running across fields from a nearby caravan.
He claimed to be Sam Spanggaard from Denmark, but Copenhagen authorities confirmed the real Spanggaard’s identity had been stolen.
He was actually Soeren Berg-Arnbak – an international drug smuggler, prison escapee, and one of Europe’s most wanted men.
Nicknamed ‘the man with the rubber face,’ he had lived a millionaire lifestyle, with villas in Italy and Switzerland, a rumoured castle in Genoa, and a luxury yacht with a private chef.
Police were especially interested in his radio equipment, which had received a crackly message from a ‘mother ship’ offshore carrying the cannabis.
The message said: ‘This is Mother. I want to come in and get this dirt off my hands.’
The shipment was waiting to land in Wales – but police, unsure how to respond without blowing their cover, let the signal go silent.
The same day the cave was discovered, Sue spotted a man who would turn out to be another member of the gang.
The white Rolls-Royce that was seen being driven by Donald Henry Holmes, who was known as ‘Safari Jo’
Just hours after the arrest of Robin Boswell, she was travelling back from Newport with her dad to their farm, having just picked up their mother from the beach.
As they came up the road, on the other side walking briskly was another strange man.
Sue says: ‘He was in a cream coloured, linen, safari suit. I said “Dad, could he be suspicious?” He said, “oh no, he’s far too well dressed to be a drug smuggler.”
‘I said, “Well, think about it. He’s marching. Who wears a safari suit in Pembrokeshire on a hike?
“He’s not hiking, he’s not ambling, he’s marching. He’s on a mission. He didn’t look at you.” Dad said, “my god, you might be right”.’
Again, Sue’s family alerted police and they linked the man – Donald Holmes – to drug dealing in southern England.
In another twist, he lived with Boswell’s ex-wife, also called Susan, in a luxury London mansion and had been seen locally in a white Rolls-Royce.
A raid on his safety deposit box uncovered cocaine worth thousands.
Traeth Cell Hywel, south of Ceibwr Bay. This was the beach where the bunker was found
When Welsh police questioned him, they found further incriminating evidence in a hidden compartment in his shoulder bag: a telegram from Baalbek linking him to the Jaafar clan, documents about a secret Surrey mansion containing more boating equipment, and details of a trip to Morocco with Susan Boswell.
A Welshman known as ‘Jim’ provided the final breakthrough.
After Mrs Boswell was questioned again and led police to him, Jim gave a marathon 36-hour interview revealing the entire plan – equipment, logistics, the cave, and the planned landing of the drugs.
Speaking on the documentary, but with a different name and voiced by an actor to conceal his identity, he said: ‘Robin turned up at my caravan one night.
‘He said, “I’ve got some work.” The next day we went to a farm in Hampshire – a really nice place. He had inflatable boats, engines, all sorts.
‘He said he wanted the operation running.’
Jim helped move the gear to West Wales. Seeing the cave, he said: ‘I couldn’t believe it. It was stunning – a whole cave built under the pebbles.’
Later, more evidence emerged.
John Havard, a lifeguard volunteer, was among the first people to enter the beach bunker. He recalls: ‘I’d seen these hatches before. I turned the levers and it popped open. ‘There was a hiss and a strong smell of fibreglass resin. We lifted the door and I thought it might be a portal to another dimension! I jumped down and was taken aback by how surreal it was’
Sue says: ‘A few months after police found the cave, £5,000 in £50 notes was found blowing across the fields.
‘Cows had chewed a plastic bag – someone must have stuffed a wad of cash into a stone wall.’
The case reached Swansea Crown Court in 1984. Several defendants pleaded guilty days before trial.
Boswell attempted a bizarre defence, claiming he’d made his fortune finding lost gold bullion, a story lifted from a book called Iron Coffins.
Sue testified in court, confirming where she’d seen Boswell and Holmes. Her father, who was the first prosecution witness, spent three hours giving evidence in court.
After 385 days, the jury returned its verdicts. Boswell was jailed for ten years, Soeren for eight, Dewar for five, and Susan Boswell for eighteen months.
Operation Seal Bay was cracked not by technology or international intelligence agencies, but by locals who knew their coastline better than anyone.
From the farmer who spotted the slat of wood to pub staff who noticed strangers flashing £50 notes, it was the watchfulness of the Pembrokeshire community that exposed one of the world’s most audacious trafficking rings – and stopped three tonnes of Lebanese cannabis from flooding into Britain.
Sue, who now lives in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, adds: ‘It was without a doubt the veracity of the locals that helped put these people away.’
She laughs: ‘There were only a few degrees of separation between everybody in Pembrokeshire. It’s hard to believe what happened, even now after over 40 years.’
Cannabis Cove: Operation Seal Bay is available on BBC iPlayer.
