TWO men have each been jailed for four years for their part in smuggling herbal cannabis into the country from South Africa.

The were arrested after large amounts of the drug were intercepted by customs officers.

Boxes of salt were substituted for the cannabis in one parcel and it was then tracked to a house in Medway.

Officers pounced and Richard Lovett, 28, was arrested. That led them to Vernatius Michael, 21, at a flat in Gravesend.

Maidstone Crown Court heard that police seized three consignments of the drug, bound for the UK, at an airport in Johannesburg.

A fourth package was intercepted by customs officers at London’s Heathrow airport.

Anthony Prosser, prosecuting, said Kent Police arranged a "controlled delivery" to find out who the cannabis was being sent to. It turned to be the Gillingham home of Lovett’s mother.

Mr Prosser said another consignment had arrived at Heathrow in May last year and was bound for an address in Ernest Road, Chatham.

It was later found to have been Lovett’s home at the time. The drug, weighing 10 kilos, was seized and destroyed.

Five months later, customs officers at Heathrow examined another parcel destined for an address in Granville Road, Gillingham, where Lovett was then living. This time it contained 2.5 kilos of cannabis.

In December, police discovered a drugs package, containing 6.7 kilos, with the same address, at the airport in Johannesburg.

Then in March this year 42.15 kilos of cannabis was tracked to the home in Charter Street, Gillingham, of Lovett’s mother.

An undercover police officer posed as a van driver to deliver the parcel to that address.

Other officers waited about 10 minutes before forcing their way in. Lovett was in the living room with the opened boxes, talking on his mobile phone.

Lovett denied smuggling drugs but was convicted on Tuesday. Michael admitted the charge.