Cowes-based boat builder Henry Stableford, 31, has been arrested by Italian police on suspicion of being involved with a £270 million cocaine smuggling plot.

He was arrested in Fano, Italy while on a business trip. Armed police swooped with a warrant which claimed he was wanted for questioning in Morocco because a boat he delivered there in 1997 was later involved in a drugs ring.

Stableford delivered the boat to Agadir in 1997. Ten weeks later a gang was caught trying to dispose of two tonnes of cocaine from the boat.

Stableford’s crewman John Packwood was arrested on the same warrant while on holiday in Spain in October 2004. He was extradited to Morocco, but released 13 months later with a pardon from King Mohammed VI of Morocco who acknowledged he had done nothing wrong.