Rock star Phil Collins' nephew arrested in Peru after police 'find £3m worth of cocaine stashed in yacht fire extinguishers and fuel tanks'

Philip Austin Collins detained alongside two other Britons over 30kg bust

37-year-old's father Clive is musician Phil's brother

Richard Marshall Crewe and Gareth John Young also arrested

When cartoonist Clive Collins proudly posed before cameras with his MBE he revealed his rock star brother Phil had stepped in to join him because his son couldn’t make it.



Clive’s son – also called Phil – was sailing the Atlantic on a ‘once in a lifetime’ voyage to the Caribbean and beyond.



Collins junior blogged from the island of Aruba that he was ‘so, so proud’ of his father and told him and his multi-millionaire uncle Phil to have an ‘amazing day at Buckingham Palace’.

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Two years ago Phil Collins' nephew Philip Austin Collins, 39, (above) was arrested in Peru after £3million-worth of cocaine was found on a yacht he and two other British men were trying to sail across the Atlantic

Humiliating: Philip Austin Collins was paraded in front of Peruvian media following his arrest

Nervous: Philip Collins bites his nails as he is taken away by Peruvian police following his arrest

Weeks later in Lima – the capital of Peru – the 37-year-old sailor and his two crew mates Gareth Young, 39, and Richard Crewe, 32, would also find themselves paraded before the cameras.



But they were in handcuffs after being arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle £3million of cocaine out of Peru and on to the streets of Britain.



They face up to 15 years in a rat infested jail after 30kilos of the Class A drug was allegedly hidden in the fuel tanks and fire extinguishers of their yacht, the Audaciter.

The trio are among 27 suspects, including three Italians and a Peruvian woman called Helena Ramirez Vargas, arrested in police operations in Peru in the last month that have seen more than a ton of drugs seized.



The Italian men were arrested in possession of cocaine and ecstasy and are believed to belong to a gang called the Bambinos.

Raid: The moment Peruvian police boarded the Audaciter boat to search for drugs

Allegations: Officers swooped on the 37-year-old former pub owner, whose father Clive is musician Phil's brother, while he was onboard his 39ft boat the Audaciter

Claims: The cocaine was reportedly hidden in fire extinguishers and gas cylinders in the cabin

Collins’ father Clive, 71, who was honoured for his services to art in January, must now endure an agonising wait to learn the fate of his son because of Peru’s notoriously slow legal system.



Speaking from their £500,000 home in Benfleet, Essex, Collins’ stepmother Lynne, 58, said: ‘This is a very, very distressing time.’



It is a far cry from the excitement of six months ago when Collins and his crewmates set off from Mylor Marina in Cornwall in their 28-year-old Tradewind 39 cruiser.



The former pub manager and his friend Gareth Young, a pharmacist, had bought the yacht for £65,000 in 2010 telling the broker they were planning on taking a gap year to the Galapagos Islands.



The pair had been friends since attending the elite Westcliff High School for Boys, a well-respected grammar school in Essex.

Proud: Clive Collins (right) with brother Phil (left) as he received his MBE for services to art earlier this year. Clive's son Phil called to say he would not be able to attend

Greg Duffy, the previous owner of the Audaciter, said: ‘They said they had taken an intensive zero to hero course teaching them to sail and they were planning a trip to the Galapagos Islands. It is the perfect yacht for that.’



They made an attempt to sail to the Caribbean soon after buying the yacht but had to be rescued by the RNLI just south of Cornwall, after one of its masts broke. Undeterred they waited a year before setting off again in September, even pressing on after their engine failed hours into the voyage.



Collins kept a blog detailing their journey which included stop offs in La Coruna in Spain, where they got their engine fixed, the Canary Islands and Cape Verde off the coast of Senegal.



They then sailed to Antigua where they spent Christmas with their girlfriends who had flown out to meet them. After leaving the island the three friends island hopped to Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica and St Lucia before arriving at Aruba off the coast of Venezuela on January 23, 2012.



It is from there on January 26 that Collins writes of his regret at missing his father being awarded the MBE.



He blogs: ‘Originally I thought I was going to be able to attend. The reality with this unpredictable sailing lark is that it was unfeasible which upset me greatly.’



Discovery: This police video shows the cocaine was allegedly hidden in fire extinguishers

From this point the blog takes a darker tone as Collins writes about his friends falling out after a night in a casino. Then, after paying $1,000 to get through the Panama Canal, he writes about befriending a ‘crazy Ecuadorian’ who claims his nephew is the vice president of Ecuador.



This man apparently directs them to Manta in Ecuador telling them to mention his name to a man called Roduigo Adugo and ‘he will sort everything out for you’.



When they arrived in Manta on February 20 and eventually find Mr Adugo it appears he owns the yacht club ‘and about 20 of the huge fishing boats out in the harbour’ and arranges for his engineers to make repairs to the Audaciter.



Collins and the crew eventually left Manta on March 1, heading south down the coast of Ecuador to test their new engine before heading out into the Pacific to the Galapagos Islands.



By now Collins appears tired of his travels and reveals he is planning to fly home when the yacht returns to the Panama Canal after the Galapagos.

Seized: Collins was later humiliatingly paraded in front of Pervuian television cameras. Next to him were bags full of cocaine found in several recent raids

In his last blog entry on March 4 he says: ‘We have been away for nearly five months but only recently has it started to take its toll.’



But eight days later the three were arrested after their boat was intercepted leaving the Yacht Club de la Punta Callao in Lima, more than 1,000 miles away from the Galapagos.



National Police director Raul Salazar said the arrests showed his officers were effectively disrupting the ‘international tentacles’ involved in the country’s illegal drug trade.



The three Britons were paraded in front of cameras with their hands cuffed behind their back next to bags full of cocaine from recent raids.



Last night Richard Crewe’s mother Brigitta, looked distressed as she answered the door at her home near Norwich. She said: ‘I haven’t spoken to him. I can’t say anything at the moment.’



A friend of Collins said: ‘Everyone is putting their faith in the Foreign Office that they can sort the situation out.’



Peruvian police allegedly found 30kilos of cocaine on the Audaciter. Cocaine has a street value of around £50 a gram meaning the haul could be worth £1.5million.



However the drug is likely to be pure because it has come direct from South America meaning it could be cut doubling its street value to £3million.

