Leonel Hernandez-Gonzalez, 37, Oscar Alberto Grisales-Cuervo, 46, and Daniel Valdes Jaramillo, 24, worked with Colombian drug lords to bring in cocaine worth £25million in a consignment of bananas, hiding the drugs among the real fruit.
The three men, from London, were arrested after meeting at a Brixton cafe to exchange a 'treasure map' detailing where drugs were hidden in a warehouse in Kent.
Had their scheme worked, the country could have been flooded with the illegal deadly drug, Southwark Crown Court was told.
Prosecutor Ken Millett said: 'On 10 July last year following a lengthy, proactive investigation by officers from the Specialist Crime directorate at New Read more after cut
Scotland Yard, officer found 100kg of high-grade cocaine at a banana warehouse ripening plant just off the A2 in Kent.
'Those bananas had been found in a pallet of a consignment of genuine bananas that had been sent on or about 21 June from Colombia.'More than 30 pallets of bananas were delivered to an industrial estate in Hartlip, near Sittingbourne, where father-of-one Jaramillo worked and received the drugs delivery.
'Police officers had been keeping Mr Jaramillo and others under observation and he was under observation.
Jailed: Former butcher Oscar Grisales-Cuervo, of London, was jailed for 22 years
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Jailed: Former butcher Oscar Grisales-Cuervo, of London, was jailed for 22 years
'He had been seen meeting up with Mr Grisales Cuervo and Mr Hernandez Gonzalez,' said Mr Millett.
Officers were watching as the bananas and drugs were dropped off at the warehouse and placed within the ripening room.
Mr Millett continued: 'The drugs could not be recovered until a map of the location of the drugs could be obtained from the first two defendants [Grisales Cuervo and Hernandez Gonzalez.
'That treasure map was later sent from Colombia to Mr Grisales Cuervo and after he consignment had been delivered they met up with Mr Jaramillo at a cafe in Brixton where the details of where the drugs were to be found were handed over.
'As the men left the cafe on 10 July they were arrested by police officers, each were found in possession of a large quantity of mobile phones, including encrypted telephones.
'Later that night the officers found the consignment of drugs at until four hidden within the centre of a pallet which had specific identity markings on it,' he said.
'This consignment was part of a wider conspiracy to import large shipments of drugs into the United Kingdom using this and other methods of secretion.'
The high-grade cocaine was 91 per cent pure and was to be cut with other substances before it reached street level where the purity can be as low as one to 15 per cent.
The drugs had a wholesale value of up to £8m and a street value of £24.5m.
'The bananas were wrapped in a particular cling film and had been smeared with some kind of oil or grease or chemical to prevent detection by sniffer dogs,' said Mr Millett.
'The form of the cocaine imported, namely in plastic bananas, made it plain the sophisticated and ingenious method of just how it was brought into the country and therefore the levels of planning involved.'
Christopher Whitehouse, for Grisales-Cuervo, said he was a man of 'modest means' who moved to the country 18 years ago.
More than 30 pallets of bananas were delivered to an industrial estate in Hartlip, near Sittingbourne, where father-of-one Jaramillo worked and received the drugs delivery
He had been 'trying to make his way' in the country and had worked in restaurants and markets before setting up a 'legitimate' butchers.
During his evidence Grisales Cuervo insisted he did not recognise the famous footie nicknames and protested he had no idea his Blackberry phone was encrypted.
'I'm not interested in football.... the matches of the Colombian team I might have seen some of them but it is not I'm a crazy fan and love football as such,' he told jurors.
Other messages referred to needing to 'clean up the product' and advising to use commercial storage as a house would be 'too conspicuous'.
The drugs had a wholesale value of up to £8m and a street value of £24.5m
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The drugs had a wholesale value of up to £8m and a street value of £24.5m
Grisales-Cuervo codenamed cocaine 'panela' - an unprocessed brown sugar popular in Colombia and often sold in small blocks, it was said.
The gang also stashed packs of cocaine in rolls of paper to be shipped into the country in an operation that had been going on for 'years'.
He also claimed he sent messages about the bananas because he worried he would get in trouble with the authorities if the bananas rotted and attracted 'plagues'.
Former butcher Grisales-Cuervo and fellow Colombian Hernandez-Gonzalez was convicted by a jury of importing the class A drug between January and July last year.
Valdes Jaramillo pleaded guilty to the same offence before trial.
Sentencing the trio Judge Juliet May said: 'The operation required trusted, informed and capable agents in the UK.
'On the evidence in the case suggests the defendants were very much performing to the direction of others, not masterminding the scheme but taking a key part in a scheme masterminded by others, very probably in Columbia.
'None of the men had wealthy lifestyles but Valdes Jaramillo said he expected a very significant payment.'
She commended the work of police officers who worked hard to stop a smuggling ring.
She said: 'The seizure was the culmination of a careful, committed police operation.
'In March 2014 they observed Hernandez-Gonzales handing £300,000 to a taxi driver who was later acquitted for his involvement, which was clearly proceeds from the operation.
'Hernandez-Gonzalez was the subject to police observation, and a probe was put in Grisales-Cuervo's car revealing the extent of his role in the conspiracy with the bananas.
'There clearly had been dummy runs at least, if not actual runs, and very significant imports would have continued had the police not stopped it.'
She said Valdes Jaramillo played a 'very significant' liaison role with the Columbian cartel and played a 'leading role' in the UK operation.
Hernandez-Gonzales organised the distribution networks in the UK while Grisales-Cuervo travelled out to Columbia in June to visit the cocaine factory and meet the bosses of the cartel face to face.
Hernandez-Gonzalez, of Hounslow, and Grisales-Cuervo, of London, were found guilty after a trial and jailed for 22 years in jail.
Valdes Jaramillo, of Old Kent Road, who pleaded guilty at the first opportunity for being involved in the conspiracy was jailed for 15 years.
Dressed in a striped blue shirt and blue suit, Grisales-Cuervo wiped away tears as he was being led out of court, while the blue suited Hernandez-Gonzalez sat impassive when he was being sentenced.
Dressed in a blue polo shirt, Valdes Jaramillo hung his head as he was sentenced.
There were sobs from their families in the public gallery as the three men were led away.
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