An Upper Norwood man has been jailed for 14 years for his involvement in a £3.5million cocaine smuggling ring in which the drugs were hidden in pineapples.

Robert Smith, 51, of Clayland Court, Salters Hill, was sentenced at Croydon Crown Court last Thursday for being part of a gang which arranged to pick up the drug consignment from Felixstowe.

The six other gang members five of whom denied the charge of unlawful importation were found guilty and sent down for 18 years.

The drugs had been shipped from Panama via Amsterdam and were found in a lorry driven by an undercover customs officer at the Big Yellow storage depot in Knights Hill, Upper Norwood, on January 14 last year.

Police and customs officers monitored the progress of the cargo from Holland via radio bugs in the pineapple cartons.

Although Smith's role was said to have been of an unloader, Judge Stephen Waller told him: "You were at a lower level but there were no passengers in this enterprise. Everyone must have been trusted and fully in the know. I cannot accept that your role was simply that of a porter."

Gairy Thompson, 46, of Orpington, Barrington Reid, 54, of Peckham, Michael Dixon, 45, of no fixed address, Erol Seyhan, 36, of Clapton, and Clinton Johnson, 57, of Brixton as well as Dutch national Ismael Kaltachi, 43, who pleaded guilty were all sentenced to 18 years.