White led a conservative life in Britain

Police believe Lincoln White, 39, of Dulwich, south-east London, to be the largest importer, manufacturer and distributor of the drug in the UK.

Kingston Crown Court heard the Jamaican national was the mastermind behind a network which stretched from Nicaragua to Britain.

He was sentenced alongside nine members of his gang on Wednesday.

During the trial, prosecutor Hugh Davies said White sat at the top of a multi-million pound cocaine network "with its tentacles stretching from Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, the Antilles and Grenada to the UK".

OTHERS JAILED Errol Williams, 30, from Brixton, south London, jailed for 20 years Michael Small, 37, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, jailed for 13 years Maxine Hemmings, 37, from Mitcham, Surrey jailed for 12 years Janet Scott, 41, from Lewisham, south London, jailed for 12-and-a-half years Yuleane Tulloch, 27, from Clapham, south London, jailed for nine years after pleading guilty Philip Hearsum, 51, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, jailed for nine years Kemi Osagie, 21, from Liverpool, jailed for eight years Natasha Osagie, 20, from Liverpool, jailed for eight years Julio Vispo, 36, from Streatham, south London, jailed for 12 years

Below him and his lieutenants was a network of couriers, a corrupt airport worker and two former lovers of White who were given the task of transferring thousands of pounds abroad on his behalf.

The jury took almost six days to return their verdict after a 10-week trial surrounded by massive security.

Such was the importance of White and the potential for his friends on the outside to hatch an escape plan, he was escorted to and from court each day by police both on the ground and overhead in a helicopter.

Police armed with machine guns patrolled the court in south-west London.

Ten people were arrested around 20-21March last year in a series of co-ordinated raids across the UK involving 500 officers from the National Crime Squad, Metropolitan Police, West Yorkshire Police and HM Customs & Excise.

On 21 March, police raided a flat in Clapham, south London, where they found a working crack factory and seized a holdall containing 24lb of drugs with a potential street value of more than �1m.

White lived in luxury at his home in Montego Bay

It was the largest single seizure of crack cocaine ever made in the UK.

Sentencing White, Judge Edward Southwell said: "You played for the highest stakes with what I consider to be breathtaking arrogance and those stakes must now be met."

The judge also told White that he would be recommending his deportation from the United Kingdom once he has served his sentence.

Although he enjoyed some luxury in Jamaica, where he owned at least two properties, his life in the UK was far from glamorous.

He was described by police who interviewed him as seemingly well-educated, he drove small cars and shunned the jewellery favoured by the "Yardie" culture that his multi-million-pound trade fuelled.

Police estimate that White's network may have pocketed as much as �170m from the operation between September 1999 and March 2003.