TWO organisers of a massive bootlegging conspiracy involving the evasion of almost £20m in customs duty are facing jail.

John Fleming and his son, also John, were found guilty today along with James O’Neill, Michael Hicks and Tracey Archer after a trial lasting almost two months.

The jury has not yet reached verdicts on two others, Thomas Burns and Archie Bain.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how passengers were used like an “army of ants” to travel across the Channel and bring back large amounts of tobacco.

Nigel Ingram, prosecuting, said Fleming senior, 57, and Fleming junior, 36, were the “driving force” behind the operation.

Individual couriers would smuggle goods that were not over guideline levels so that they did not attract attention.

“They were like an army of ants each bringing in one little load,” said Mr Ingram.

Sixty seizures were directly linked to the conspiracy but that was only the “tip of a very large iceberg”.

Some 3,593 ferry or Channel Tunnel tickets were bought from Dover Eurochange, at a cost of almost £90,000, during the two years that the conspiracy was operating.

Mr Ingram said as a conservative estimate, if each car carried 50kg of tobacco into the UK, the amount of duty evaded between June 1998 and July 2000 would be £19,941,150.

Neither of the Flemings, who live in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, had any visible means of support or any legitimate employment.

Hotel Burstin in Folkestone was used as an office by the organisers. Both Flemings, Michael Hicks, 51, and Thomas Burns, 42, were arrested there.

A caravan in the grounds of the High and Dry pub at Sandwich Road, Waldershare, was used as a sub-office.

When the caravan was later searched a holdall containing the effects of James O’Neill, 66, was discovered.

Archie Bain, 56, was arrested in July 2000 at the entrance to Folkestone ferry terminal. O’Neill was detained at his home in Kilmarnock. Tracey Archer, 38, was arrested after being stopped on the M6 in June 2000.

The six from Kilmarnock, Fleming Snr, of Nith Place, Fleming Jnr, of Wyvis Road, Burns, of London Roa, Hicks, of Dairy Road, Bain, of Barbados Road, O’Neill, of Crangurdland Road and Archer, of Grace Walk, Deal, denied conspiracy to evade duty.

Judge Michael Neligan remanded the two Flemings, Hicks and O’Neill in custody overnight. Archer, a single mother-of-two was granted bail overnight.

“Following conviction for offences of this nature, the chances of a custodial sentence cannot be small,” he added.