COCAINE GANG TOLD THEY FACE LONG JAIL TERMS

Leaders of one of the biggest cocaine-smuggling rings seen in Britain face
long prison sentences after seven convictions at the end of a two-month
trial.

A complex Customs exercise snared the ringleaders behind a pounds 20 million
operation based on false 'adventure expeditions' in Colombia which returned
with the drugs in Land Rover wheel hubs.

A jury in Leeds heard how the chain involved jeep and motorbike import and
export between Italy, Brazil, Colombia and the United Kingdom, with constant
switching of wheels to evade Customs checks. The gang is thought to have
imported over pounds 50m of Colombian cocaine in three years before a
Channel Tunnel joint operation by British and French customs trapped the
consignment.

Smugglers from London, Basingstoke and West Yorkshire who posed as
snowboarding enthusiasts and jungle explorers as part of the scam were found
guilty of conspiracy to import drugs by a 10-2 majority and were warned by
Judge Ian Dobkin to expect long sentences. Two other men from West Yorkshire
changed their pleas to guilty before the trial and admitted being part of
the smuggling plot. A spokesman for Customs and Excise said: "This was a
truly international, organised, criminal gang which had at its disposal vast
sums of money."

The group's Colombian links are the subject of continuing investigations and
a fatal motorbike accident on the M2 in January, which decapitated the main
British suspect, London nightclub owner Connor Mahon, has never been
explained.