Police arrested eight men over drugs in what could have been part of a film script when in dramatic fashion they swooped down on a yacht called the Jolly Roger in an isolated spot along the coast at night.

The police said they had been investigating the case for weeks after following a lead that had led them to the place where the drugs - an alleged 30 kilos of cannabis - were meant to be dropped off.

They had tracked the movements of various people and then on Saturday evening, at around 8 p.m., a dinghy was spotted leaving the yacht with three large packets.

The dinghy approached an area known as L-Irdum ta' Miġra l-Ferħa near Mtaħleb and unloaded the packets there.

That was when the police made their move and moments later the men were apprehended in two separate cars with the drugs inside, the court heard.

Rupert Busuttil, 34, Carmelo Borg, 31, Marvin Debono, 22, and Paul Azzopardi, 39, were yesterday charged with conspiring to smuggle the cannabis into Malta. The court was told that Mr Borg and Mr Azzopardi had left the island aboard the yacht on December 23, sailed to Libya with a Libyan national aboard and returned four days later with the large consignment of drugs.

As the arrests were being made on land, members of the Armed Forces held two more people who had remained on the yacht and on the dinghy.

Police Inspectors Norbert Ciappara, Jesmond Borg and Johann Fenech prosecuted.

Lawyers Gianella Caruana Curran and Manuel Mallia appeared for Mr Busuttil, Mr Borg and Mr Debono while legal aid lawyer Martin Fenech appeared for Mr Azzopardi.