TWO men have started 10-year jail sentences for their part in sophisticated scheme to smuggle £3m worth of drugs into the country.

Hector Estrada Santamaria and Gildardo Zabala were caught in a sting by Customs officers as they took delivery of furniture they believed contained cocaine.

But the drug had been removed and replaced with dummy bags, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

Colombian-born Santamaria, 36, of Peckham, South East London, and Zabala, 37, of Bermondsey, East London, admitted evasion of prohibition on goods.

Jorge Jimenez, 35, of Corbetts Rise, Tunbridge Wells, denied the charge and was acquitted by a jury.

Thirty kilos of cocaine had been brought into the country from South America via Antwerp. It was shipped on a container ship called The Discoverer to a terminal at Thamesport, Isle of Grain, near Rochester, on July 8 last year.

David Walbank, prosecuting, said the Mexican rustic furniture was awaiting Customs clearance when it was selected for closer inspection.

An X-Ray machine scanned the 40ft container and when officers did not like what they saw, they took a closer look.

Five thick carved doors had been hollowed out and the cocaine had been put in secret compartments.

There were six packages in each door, making a total of 60. Each door contained 6kg of the drug. The purity was high at 70-80 per cent.

Mr Walbank said the total value at street level would have been around £2.9m.

"It was an extremely valuable consignment," he said. "Customs decided the best way to catch them out was to set up a classic sting operation."

Thirty dummy packages were substituted in the doors and delivered to the intended destination of storage company Lock and Lock and Store in Tonbridge.

Mr Walbank said the container was met by Jimenez and he and Lock and Store staff unloaded it. It remained there for several days.

An undercover officer posed as an employee of Lock and Store. Jimenez eventually instructed the company to deliver the furniture to an address in Bermondsey.

The officer posed as a delivery driver and took the furniture there on August 2. He was met by Zabala. Santamaria arrived later.

"They went in in force and found Mr Santamaria and Mr Zabala inflagrante," he said. "They were arrested. Mr Jimenez was arrested elsewhere."

Zabala had been issued with a deportation notice, while Santamaria held a British passport and was now a British citizen.

Judge Michael Lawson, QC, said on Wednesday that both men had taken a chance and gambled on the prospect of making money.

"You were very close to the original source of the drugs," he said. "You provided a safe house where the drugs could be extracted from false compartments. You appreciate that a lengthy sentence is the only possible outcome."

If they had not pleaded guilty, he said, the sentence would have been 13 years.

The judge told Zabala he was recommending deportation as his continued presence in the country was "wholly detrimental".