F1 under drugs squad investigation

A report in the The Sunday Times has alleged that customs officials have been monitoring the movement of F1 personnel and equipment through Dover. There have also been rumours that the F1 paddock at Silverstone was searched by the drugs squad this week.

Scotland Yard drugs squad detectives have launched an operation codenamed Operation Equipment after two informants claimed that cars and transporters have been used as a cover to smuggle drugs across from Europe and South America.

Incredibly, according to the report, Scotland Yard considered putting an undercover policeman inside F1, and they planned to ask Nigel Mansell, a former special constable on the Isle of Man, to help get their man in.

The wife of an un-named British driver claimed that she had seen white packages loaded onto containers belonging to an F1 team in Rio de Janeiro.

She claimed that F1 transporters are rarely searched. She said: "The containers were used to ship all sorts of goods. I saw white packages loaded into one container. I guessed it was Cocaine."

The fact that the circuit named in this case is Rio, suggest that this event happened at least ten years ago. The last Grand Prix to be held at the Rio circuit was in 1989.

Operation Equipment was apparently inconclusive and Bernie Ecclestone is thought to have offered his and the FIA's full co-operation when he became aware of the operation in 1997.

An aide for Ecclestone said: "He did not have any knowledge or evidence that individuals within F1 were doing anything of the sort (drug smuggling). If he had had evidence, he would have taken it to the Police."