A convicted Canadian drug smuggler sailing near Newport was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday and later arrested after authorities say they discovered 28 seven-gallon jugs filled with liquified drugs inside his boat.

A Coast Guard crew on a routine patrol stopped John P. Stirling aboard his boat, the Mandalay, more than 200 miles from Newport, according to a criminal complaint.

Stirling, 65, went below deck as guardsmen approached and would only speak to them through a marine VHF radio, the complaint said. When they boarded the boat, Stirling was alone and refused to provide an ID or documentation for the vessel, according to the court papers. Authorities later learned the boat was registered in the U.S. with a home port of Seattle.

As crew members questioned Stirling, he appeared to be overdosing on drugs, the complaint said. He was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Astoria. Authorities searched the Mandalay and found 28 liquid-filled seven-gallon jugs beneath a blue canvas tarp, the complaint said.

The liquid in two of the jugs were determined to be methamphetamine, the complaint said. It doesn’t say in the court documents what authorities determined were in the other jugs, but Stirling is accused of saying he was transporting meth and fentanyl. He faces federal charges of possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine.

Stirling told a nurse at the Astoria hospital that he had consumed a “large amount” of fentanyl, according to the court papers. He said he took the drugs as guardsmen boarded his boat because he was smuggling, the complaint said.

Stirling told another nurse at a Portland hospital where he was transferred that he was heading to Canada with “a ton of meth and 10 loads of fentanyl,” and that he didn’t want to go to jail for “the rest of his life,” the complaint said.

Stirling has been caught transporting drugs by boat in the past.

He was stopped in 2001 with around 2,500 kilograms of cocaine and again in 2006 with an estimated $6.5 million worth of marijuana, according to The Vancouver Sun in Canada. He wasn’t charged in the first instance but was charged in the second incident. That case was stayed, meaning the charges weren’t dismissed but the case did not proceed.

He was arrested five years later by the Coast Guard after authorities found him at sea with four other crew members near Colombia with about 380 kilograms — more than 800 pounds — of cocaine and a little more than 1 kilogram of heroin on their 64-foot Canadian-registered sailing boat, court records show. The crew was about 90 miles away from their destination, Jamaica, when they were stopped.

Stirling was eventually sentenced to 7 1/2 years in federal prison in the U.S. in 2013 after pleading guilty to importing cocaine.

According to a transcript from the plea and sentencing hearing in a Florida federal court, Stirling admitted to a judge that he told authorities “there was nothing wrong with drug trafficking and that the United States should mind its own business.” The transcript also said Stirling admitted to saying if taxes weren’t so high in Canada he “could afford to get a legitimate job.”

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey

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