Two men in their 50s have been found guilty of running a multi-million pound drug import and distribution business from a storage unit in Essex and selling class A and B substances to dealers around the UK.

Gary Vick, 58, from Rainham and Paul Knight, 52, from Canvey Island were tracked down after a consignment of drugs was discovered by Border Force officers at Birmingham International Airport in March 2013, in 12 boxes that were being transported by courier from the Netherlands.

The boxes contained more than 90 kilos of class A and B substances, including heroin, cocaine, MDMA and cannabis.

Investigators then followed the load as it was delivered to a storage unit in Dagenham. Vick was arrested after signing for the packages. At the time of his arrest he was on the phone to Knight, who had rented the unit.

CCTV showed both men had been there regularly. They were often seen handing boxes similar to those picked up at Birmingham Airport to other visitors to the site.

Twenty other consignments, weighing a total of around 1.7 tonnes, had been shipped from the Netherlands to the address in Dagenham in the preceding two months. Phone evidence showed both men were at or near the site on the days the consignments were delivered.

Knight vanished, but was located in October 2013 following an appeal by the National Crime Agency on the BBC's Crimewatch programme and in local media in the Essex area.

He would later plead guilty to importation charges. Gary Vick was found guilty on 14 September 2015 following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.

On Thursday 01 October Knight was jailed for ten years, while Vick was handed a six year prison sentence.

Knight was also handed a Serious Crime Prevention Order limiting his future use of phones, computers and the internet.

NCA branch commander Jacque Beer said: "This has been a long and painstaking investigation, but it has resulted in the imprisonment of two men who were heavily involved in importing drugs into the UK.

"Knight and Vick acted as wholesalers, using the fast parcel courier system to bring in the drugs and then distributing them on to dealers around the south east.

"The load recovered in March 2013 on its own would have had a potential street value of almost £4.75 million, but we estimate that these men were likely to have been involved in importing tens of millions of pounds worth."

(MH/CD)