And these are not small time operations. Only last week three members of a drugs smuggling gang were convicted of attempting to smuggle 1.5 tonnes of cocaine worth €1.2bn into Ireland using a RIB. It seems the bust was a bit of an own goal after the gang attempted to run the boat's Yamaha outboards on diesel fuel, which rather hampered their high speed dash into the Irish coast with the booty.

The Colombian drugs gang apparently lost millions of pounds and, just to prove how enormous this bust was, the evidence gathered along the Irish coast led police to Britain, Spain, South Africa, the US, Barbados and Colombia.

These gangs have to get their boats somewhere, so the BMF and SOCA are urging the UK leisure marine industry to do everything it can to help the authorities stop the criminals by passing on any suspicious information.

SOCA has launched Operation Callisto to tackle this criminal activity and is offering guidance and seeking the help of industry for information gathering, but stresses it’s only asking for information that may be revealed during normal business dealings. Nobody is expecting anyone to start snooping around in a world where life is cheap.

The agency is offering ‘Know your customer’ advice, which outlines some of the things to look out for when dealing with potential dodgy customers. This includes:

• How is the written or e-mail order presented in letterhead, style, vocabulary and professional presentation?

• Is the payment made in cash, by postal order or certified cheque? In the case of purchase on the Internet does the client intend to pay with a credit card?

• Are names of other companies, forwarding agents or retailers/distributors mentioned as ultimate consignees of a product?

• Is delivery requested to a third person, whose activities or position are not linked with the supposed activities of the end user?

• Are there any modification requests such as the design strength of the boat’s floor, suggesting the customer wishes to operate it with an increased load, number of engines or fuel?

‘Our leisure marine industry is full of fantastic businesses providing a great service to customers and we want to ensure that we are not inadvertently used by criminals,’ said Howard Pridding, BMF executive director. ‘We urge industry to be on the lookout for suspicious behaviour and to report it to the authorities.’

SOCA and its Operation Callisto is still very new and everyone is finding their feet in what could turn out to be a very big operation indeed. The illegal use of fast boats is hardly new – the use of Don Aronow-designed Cigarette race boats to run drugs into Florida is the stuff of legend.

Likewise, stories of RIBs arriving in Mediterranean ports from north Africa in the early hours crammed to the gunwhales with tobacco and other drugs have been circulating for years.

BB has highlighted strange RIBs in the past – Portsmouth Poll once pictured an evil-looking RIB from the Norfolk yard of Crompton Marine that was very similar to the one in our picture with a handy 2,000hp hung on the transom.

SOCA is looking to us – the industry – to help them deal with this ever growing problem. Sharon Lemon, SOCA’s deputy director for crime techniques told BB: ‘Part of our business with crime techniques is to look at different ways that people exploit traditional markets. This is why we’ve gone out to industry as in most cases, law enforcement has a lot to learn from industry.’

Lawrence Gibbons, principal officer, SOCA crime techniques, told us: ‘We’re dealing with larger, specifically designed RIBs similar to the extreme RIBs produced by Crompton Marine and used upstream, so we’re talking about the Mediterranean and the west coast of Africa.’

The off the shelf RIBs are used for runs to the south coast from France or Holland or even Ireland, he added.

But SOCA stresses it’s not expecting the local chandler to start snooping around, although SOCA does have powers to protect people offering it evidence. 'Within the SOCA Act we have powers to accept information of this kind and to protect people who are helping us out in this very important law enforcement area,' Ms Lemon told BB.

Any suspicious activity should in the first instance be reported to Lawrence Gibbons by emailing callisto@soca.x.gsi.gov.uk with details of the concerns and, ideally, your own contact details. If someone is seen to commit any criminal activity then the matter should be reported in the normal way by notifying local Police immediately for them to deal with it.