French couple jailed for 13 years over $121m Townsville yacht cocaine heist

A judge has questioned authorities after a cocaine-laden yacht sat unsupervised for months, allowing a couple to secretly move hundreds of kilograms of the drug onshore.

French national Rachid Kachour, 58, and his long-term partner Matthieu Rees, 47, pleaded guilty before Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday to one count each of possessing a commercial quantity of unlawfully imported border-controlled drugs in relation to a 2023 drug discovery at the Townsville Yacht Club and Marina.

The two men, who resided in the ACT at the time, travelled to Townsville in May 2023 and snuck onto a yacht that had recently arrived in the North Queensland town from Vanuatu.

The boat had already been flagged as suspicious by the Australian Border Force and taped off for investigation after officers uncovered a sealed cement area inside the boat.

The court was told CCTV revealed the pair, over four days, stealthily drilled into the secret compartment, extracting about 484kg of rock that was later evaluated to be 80.6 per cent pure cocaine (390kg) and estimated at a value of $121m.

They then moved the illicit product to a safe house where, the court was told, it was later distributed by other members of the syndicate.

Rees and Kachour unloaded the product in a van hired by Kachour, taking at least 11 full loads and one partial load to the safe house; however, more drugs were later found inside the boat.

The yacht was not under guard or supervision at the time of the operation and was not searched until months later in July, allowing the couple’s covert operation to go unchecked for some time.

Justice Peter Callaghan questioned why the boat was left unsupervised by official despite their suspicions.

“It is a bit disturbing the police clearly had a suspicion, more than a suspicion … but obviously didn’t have resources to keep it under observation to track what has now been reconstructed (through CCTV) with result being hundreds of kilograms of cocaine have been allowed into the community,” he noted.

“It makes you wonder when people talk about being tough on drugs, but 484kg of cocaine has been allowed into the community under the noses of the authorities.”

The court was told the men, said to have been together since the 1990s, were pulled into the illicit drug operation when Kachour’s cousin offered up to an alleged $500,000, with the men conceding they were jointly paid $300,000 for their efforts.

A total of $290,000 was found in their possession at the time of their arrest, the missing $10,000 was never found.

Both prosecution and defence stated the men were unaware of the type of drug, quality or quantity when they agreed to move the product, nor played any role in importation or distribution of the drugs in Australia.