Three members of a Columbian drugs cartel who imported £24 million of cocaine stored in banana boxes have been jailed for a total of 59 years.

The consignment, which came from the South American nation and weighed more than 100kg, arrived in Dover on July 8 last year before being delivered by lorry to a unit at the Oast Park Trading Estate in Hartlip two days later.

It was unloaded and locked up at the warehouse which was kept under observation by detectives from the Met Police's special projects team, while their colleagues continued to monitor other members of the criminal network in the capital.

At around 7pm the same day, Leonal Hernandez-Gonzalez, Oscar Grisales-Cuervo and Daniel Valdes Jaramillo met at an internet café in Stockwell in south London.

There they are believed to have accessed instructions relating to the assignment via email.

The men were kept under surveillance and arrested half an hour later as they left the eatery.

Police forced entry to the warehouse at 10.30pm and found 105kg of cocaine compressed and packed in plastic bananas concealed within the fruit.

The recovered drugs have a wholesale value of £6.4 million, with an estimated street value of around £24 million.

Analysis found it to be of 98% purity. Officers also seized £290,000 of cash which was linked to Hernandez-Gonzalez.

The lorry driver was not part of the network.

All three were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court yesterday.

Both Hernandez-Gonzalez, 37, of Hounslow, west London, and Grisales-Cuervo, 45, of north London, were jailed for 22 years for conspiracy to import of cocaine. The men were found guilty following a trial at the same court on March 13.

Jaramillo, 24, of south east London, was jailed for 15 years after pleading guilty conspiracy to import of cocaine at an earlier hearing.

DI Paul Foreman, of the special projects team, said: “The arrest and conviction of these individuals serves to show that the Metropolitan Police will not tolerate the distribution of Class A drugs which has such a harmful effect on London’s communities.

“These individuals were part of a sophisticated, well-organised and determined criminal network capable of masterminding and resourcing this complicated international smuggling operation and sustaining it over a long period.

"The evidence shows that this unit has disrupted and dismantled what was a well-oiled, large scale operation.”

Arzine Robert Okoli, 49, of north London, was found not guilty of money laundering in connection with the case.