Eddie Keogh/Reuters
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The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Trooping the Colour celebration shall be missing six troopers from the Irish Guards after they had been arrested together with a Coldstream Guard over an alleged drug ring. The boys, who're underneath command of Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, stand accused of dealing class A medicine and cash laundering as a part of a suspected cocaine racket.
“As a part of a deliberate operation, the RMP arrested six Irish Guards troopers and a Coldstream Guardsman veteran from throughout the UK on suspicion of conspiracy to produce medicine and cash lending and laundering offences,” an Irish military spokesman mentioned in a press release. “The Military doesn't tolerate any kind of unlawful or fraudulent behaviour. As that is now the topic of an unbiased RMP investigation, it's inappropriate to remark additional.”
5 of the seven males had been reportedly launched on bail, however they won't be participating in the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. The arrests, first reported by the British Solar, stem from what the tabloid described as a “mortgage shark operation” through which they allegedly loaned cash at inflated rates of interest after which laundered the funds.
The arrests—which had been carried out in a collection of raids within the U.Ok., Wales and Northern Eire—come simply weeks after Prince William introduced the regiment with new colours and bestowed upon them the honour of main the Trooping of the Colours celebrations to be held June 2 and can function greater than 1,200 troopers and officers.
“They got here in just like the DEA—kicking down doorways,” a supply advised the Solar. “There was no warning. We had been advised that they had been planning the operation for months. It wasn’t simply the barracks. They searched the troopers’ properties offbase. It’s all come as an enormous shock.”
Earlier than the arrests Prince William advised the Irish Guard he was “immensely proud” of what it had achieved, together with service in Afghanistan, Cyprus, South Sudan, Kosovo and Iraq.