They were convicted of smuggling a tonne of cocaine from Panama to Port Hardy on a sailing vessel called The Huntress.

But commercial diver Scott Pedersen and Mexican citizen Vincente Serrano-Hernandez claimed on appeal that some of the evidence used against them in their 2011 trial should never have been admitted.

The B.C. Court of Appeal disagreed Thursday, upholding their convictions for which they are now serving 16-year sentences.

Appeal Court Justice Harvey Groberman summarized the events leading to Pedersen and Serrano-Hernandez’s arrest on March 6, 2010.

Police learned from a confidential source in late 2009 that efforts were being made to smuggle large amounts of cocaine from Ecuador into Panama and then by boat to B.C.

They started an investigation dubbed Project E-Parallelism.

In March 2010, the Canadian military was patrolling the northern tip of Vancouver Island and “observed a medium-sized sailing vessel near Cape Scott.”

They thought it unusual given the bad weather and made contact with the boat, only to get vague responses from those aboard.

So they tailed The Huntress covertly through the night as it rendezvoused with a Zodiac several times in Shushartie Bay.

Mounties met The Huntress when it docked in Port Hardy and arrested Pedersen and Serrano-Hernandez. There was no cocaine on board.

Police then hiked into the nearby bush and found the beached Zodiac and 37 large blue duffel bags with 1,001 individually-wrapped one-kilogram bricks of cocaine inside.

A news conference was held a week later where officers showed reporters the haul and announced the arrests.

Pedersen and Serrano-Hernandez claimed in their appeal that the RCMP news conference was “self-congratulatory” and prejudiced their subsequent trial and that the charges should have been stayed as a result.

Groberman disagreed, noting “there is a strong public interest in having news fully reported in a timely manner.”

He also rejected their claims that their arrest had been unlawful and that there was not sufficient evidence for the jury to convict the pair.

He did agree that evidence related to a police dog’s search of The Huntress “should not have been admitted, because it was not sufficiently relevant to justify reception of expert evidence.”

“The error, however, was harmless, and there was no miscarriage of justice or substantive wrong,” Groberman said.

And he also said the jury’s verdict was not unreasonable.

“In my view, the evidence, while circumstantial, was sufficient as a foundation for the verdict,” Groberman said. “Indeed, I would go further, and say that the evidence linking the accused to the cocaine was overwhelming.”

Appeal Court Justices Nicole Garson and David Harris agreed with Groberman.

During the seven-week trial in Victoria, an expert testified that the cocaine transported by the pair could have been worth from $26 million to $70 million, depending on whether it was sold uncut or by the gram.

kbolan@vancouversun.com

blog: vancouversun.com/therealscoop

twitter.com/kbolan

read the full ruling here

Click here to report a typo or visit vancouversun.com/typo.

Is there more to this story? We'd like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. CLICK HERE or go to vancouversun.com/moretothestory