A drug smuggler has been jailed for 14 years after £11 million of heroin was discovered in a consignment of charcoal at Dover Docks.

The Class A drug was seized from a Bulgarian lorry which had driven off at Eastern Docks from a ferry arriving from France.

Maidstone Crown Court was told the cargo involving more than 2,000 boxes on pallets was destined for a company in Soham, Cambridgeshire, run by Vasil Stoyonov, who “purported” to deal in charcoal.

But prosecutor James Norman said the business was “little more than a front” for smuggling the heroin into the UK.

Stoyonov, of Swinbourne Close, Kettering, Northamptonshire, denied being knowingly concerned in the importation of the drug, but was convicted.

The 30-year-old was said to be involved with others, including a man who was in Bulgaria and wanted by the UK authorities.

He claimed he had no idea the charcoal he ordered from Bulgaria had heroin with it.

During the search in the early hours of June 25 2015, Border Force officers recovered the drug from the walls of cardboard boxes. Each plastic bag contained about 130 grammes of heroin.

There was a total of 114 kilos of 47 per cent purity with a wholesale value of over £3 million but worth over £11 million when sold on the street.

There were over 2,000 boxes of charcoal on 28 pallets and also 2,000 empty boxes with the same markings.

Of the boxes with charcoal in them, 228 had heroin in the walls. Boxes at the back of the lorry had no heroin in them.

“Whoever arranged this importation was clearly no amateur,” said Mr Norman. “They realised that if anyone was going to steal from the lorry or if customs examined it, it would be at the back door.

“The pallets further from the doors had the most heroin on them. Thieves were less likely to get at those ones.”

Mr Norman said the empty boxes were most likely intended to replace those that would have to be destroyed to get the heroin out.

“The importation had clearly been carefully and professionally planned as there were millions of pounds at stake,” he said.

Passing sentence, Judge Carey said heroin was a drug which had “devastating consequences for users and society in general”.

“It is highly addictive and likely to increase incidents of crime by those who are desperate for another fix,” he continued.

“The quantity of drugs in this case was approaching the description of vast. It was a highly sophisticated and planned importation.”

The judge said it was part of “a clever charade to give respectability to your company and its supposed activities of supplying charcoal”.

Stoyonov, he said, was an important player in setting up a “sham” company and directing the operation.

“You were a significant operational player and plainly motivated by what would have been very substantial financial rewards,” Judge Carey added.

“You contested this matter and took your chances before the jury, just as you took your chances as a criminal in this operation. On both occasions those chances failed, and rightly so.”

Mark Harding, senior investigating officer at the NCA, said: “Importing charcoal’s always been a dirty business but Stoyanov added a particularly nasty twist, using it as cover for heroin smuggling.

“The seizure by Border Force and the NCA’s investigation means serious organised criminals have lost out on a huge revenue stream and street-level dealers won’t be able to endanger heroin users and the communities in which they live.

“It’s also shut down a smuggling route that could have been used to bring any kind of dangerous commodity into the country.”