A POOLE bricklayer, a kitchen assistant at a Bournemouth branch of Wetherspoon and a hairdresser from Spain were recruited by drug cartels to flood Britain's streets with cocaine worth £41 million.

Mystery surrounds how the men became embroiled in one of the country's biggest cocaine smuggling plots. Each of the defendants worked in regular jobs before they were arrested when half a tonne of the class A drug was found aboard a private jet at Farnborough Airport on January 29.

Martin James Neil, 49 and of Bournemouth Road, Poole, worked as a bricklayer. At the time of his arrest, he was involved in building projects at Sandbanks.

Italian national Alessandro Iembo, 28 and of Richmond Chambers, Bournemouth, held down a job at the Mary Shelley pub in Hinton Road. He also worked for the Bournemouth Pizza Company.

Victor Franco-Lorenzo, 40 and of Suffolk Road, Bournemouth, was born in Spain. He worked in hospitality in Bournemouth.

Each of the defendants have now been sentenced to 24 years each in prison after jurors this week convicted them of fraudulent evasion of a prohibition in relation to a class A drug.

Jose Ramon Miguelez-Botas, 56, a hairdresser from Valladolid in Spain, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for the same offence.

The men had stashed the cocaine, which was 79 per cent pure, in 15 suitcases before flying in from Bogota, Colombia. The drugs were discovered by Border Force officials.

The seizure sparked an National Crime Agency investigation into the crime group and a parallel investigation in Colombia, where a further five people were arrested.

Neil, Iembo, Franco-Lorenzo and Miguelez-Botas had posed as businessmen involved in the world of cryptocurrency and the music industry to hire the jet. They told representatives from firm Diamonte Jets they were due to meet Bruno Mars in Bogota.

A female representative from the company arranged for the men to leave the UK on January 26. The defendants paid £13,8500 for the hire of the jet in cash.

The woman requested that a specific company, Central Charter, handle the flight on arrival in Bogota.

NCA investigators later discovered that the same woman had arranged an almost identical trip for three of the men in December 2017. On that occasion, the jet made a stop in the Azores on its return journey.

In the build-up to the January trip, Miguelez-Botas travelled to the UK from Spain and checked into the Premier Inn Hotel in Bournemouth.

On January 25 - the day before the men flew to Colombia - they all travelled to the Chelsea Harbour Hotel in London, where they stayed the night. The next day, luxury cars arrived to take them, along with their 12 suitcases, to Luton Signature Airport.

Police in Colombia discovered criminals in Bogota used a range of tactics to help the illegal transaction go undetected. Armoured vehicles were used to transport the drugs, while a bogus policeman with a fake sniffer dog 'inspected' the men's luggage before it was reloaded onto the plane.

The group then flew back to Farnborough. Their suitcases were then selected for further inspection by Border Force. During the search, 513 individually-wrapped blocks of cocaine were found.

The men claimed they were unaware the drugs were in their cases.

Mobile phones were seized by officials. One was an encrypted, self-wiping phone, which belonged to Iembo. Call data recovered from the phones would later tie the four men to each other and the conspiracy.

Ian Truby from the NCA said: “These men deviated from their seemingly normal lives as bricklayers and waiters to play high-flying businessmen, using luxury cars, hotels and even a private jet to try and pull off a plot they thought would make them millions.

“Although this was not a particularly sophisticated smuggling attempt it clearly had significant financial backing. The loss of profit that would have been made from this seizure will be a huge hit to the wider criminal networks involved.

“Some, if not all, of these drugs were destined to be sold here in the UK by gangs who enforce control using violence, intimidation and exploitation.

“This group had no thought for the damage their actions would cause and even pretended they made the trip to carry out charity work.

“This was undoubtedly a significant seizure made by our Border Force colleagues. Together, we work tirelessly to protect the integrity of the UK border, targeting those who seek to exploit perceived vulnerabilities and bring them to justice.”

Deputy Director Monique Wrench, from Border Force Heathrow’s crime command, said: “This was a major detection by expert Border Force officers, taking a huge quantity of class A drugs out of circulation and keeping them off the streets of the UK.

“Border Force’s intervention was the crucial first step that led ultimately to these four convictions at Woolwich Crown Court.

“The seizure is testament to the success of the intelligence-led, targeted approach that Border Force takes to its customs responsibilities.”

Martin Neil's brother Stephen Neil, 53, who was not working at the time of his arrest, was found not guilty of the charge.