A 1983 drug smuggling investigation which began in Pembrokeshire is now the subject of a new BBC Sounds podcast.

Operation Seal Bay, the code name given to the investigation carried out by Dyfed-Powys Police, follows one of the biggest and most complex drug conspiracies in British history.

The story begins in the small fishing village of Newport, west Wales, where a local farmer discovers something strange on a secluded beach, only accessible by boat. What he stumbles across is a watertight hatch, leading to a secret underground bunker.

At the same time, locals have been reporting strange goings-on, sightings of men – not known to the tight-knit community – wondering around the clifftops and beaches near where the bunker was found, lobsters going missing from fishermen’s pots, expensive marine equipment found on another remote cove, and there’s gossip from the local pubs about the vast amounts of money these same men have been spending.

As the investigation unfolds it’s revealed a huge drug smuggle is underway and behind it is a gang of complicated characters. There’s the ex-public school boy financier, a skilled yachtsman with 17 different aliases, and a suspected cocaine trafficker who dons a cream-coloured safari suit and drives around in a convertible Rolls Royce.

This six-part podcast will follow the investigation through archive, along with new, exclusive interviews from the eagle-eyed members of the local community and the police officers involved in the operation.

Producer James Hale, said: “At the heart of the story is a culture clash between a glamorous international drug trafficking gang and the inquisitive Welsh townsfolk and rural detectives who thwart their audacious smuggling plot. There’s this feeling that these flash smugglers thought they could come to rural west Wales and conduct their huge drug running plan under the noses of the locals, without raising any suspicions. But how wrong they were!”

The first two episodes of Operation Seal Bay are now available on BBC Sounds, with a weekly double drop of episodes to follow: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0k8c08g