Drugs smuggler, 74, caught with a £1m haul extradited from Portuguese prison to UK after wife, 72, dies in jail
26 October 2022, 16:03 | Updated: 26 October 2022, 16:17
A cocaine smuggler caught with £1million-worth of drugs stashed on a cruise ship has been extradited from Portugal to see out his sentence in the UK.
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Roger Clarke, 74, left the prison in Lisbon just weeks after his wife Susan died from breast cancer.
The pair were serving eight-year terms after they were caught with 20lb of drugs hidden in the lining of their suitcases.
The pensioners were apprehended when they docked in Lisbon in December 2018 having travelled from the Caribbean.
Clarke is now being held at HMP High Down, near Barnstead, Surrey.
His tariff expires in May next year, but insiders claim he could be let out earlier and may be getting day release, The Mirror reported.
A source said: "Roger fought to be transferred to the UK for months, he begged British authorities to step in."
The pair were arrested following a tip-off as the liner moved into Lisbon from the eastern Caribbean island of St Lucia.
They said they were tricked by local criminals into carrying the four suitcases but were jailed for eight years in September 2019.
Lawyers said the couple were drug mules that were smuggling cocaine destined for the UK.
Susan Clarke, 72, was held in EP Tires prison, while Clarke was sent to the notorious EP Lisboa prison and begged former PM Boris Johnson for assistance and complained about rats.
Only six months after she was sentenced, Mrs Clarke was fearful that she wouldn't make it out of jail alive before she died last October.
They were caught trying to sneak 240kg of cannabis into Norway in 2010 before moving to Spain.
According to the police, the couple used four cruises across two years as a front for their activities, making up to £26,500 a trip.
Last year, Roger Clarke was transferred to a lower-security site, before being extradited to the UK.
