Thirteen guilty in pounds 65m drugs smuggling ring Brinks gangster foun d guilty of pounds 65m drugs plot

A leading gangster, who was acquitted of the Brinks-Mat bullion robbery, is one of 13 people convicted for involvement in a pounds 65m international drugs-smuggling ring, it was revealed yesterday.

Details of the longest ever undercover operation by Customs and Excise were made public, following nearly two years of complex interlocking trials.

The operation, codenamed Stealer, resulted in the arrests of a number of high-profile criminals, including Anthony White, who was cleared in connection with the pounds 26m Brinks-Mat bullion heist in 1984, in which three raiders removed three tons of gold from a storage unit near Heathrow airport.

The extraordinary case involved more than two years of undercover work and led to the seizure of illegal drugs with a street value of pounds 65m - including cocaine worth pounds 57m and cannabis worth more than pounds 8m. Reporting of the trials was prohibited until now, to safeguard the defendants from possible prejudice from earlier cases.

Operation Stealer began in the autumn of 1993, when the Customs and Excise National Investigation Service launched an offensive against internationally organised drugs trafficking.

Interest soon centred on Tony White. At the Brinks-Mat trial White's co- accused, Michael McAvoy and Brian Robinson, were each jailed for 25 years, while he was cleared because of insufficient evidence.

Within a short time White, who lived in a council house and who was on benefits, spent pounds 219,000 on homes in London and Kent and a further pounds 200,000 on refurbishments.

Spanish police, who raided his villa on the Costa del Sol in 1989, found pounds 115,000, and jewellery worth pounds 100,000.

In August 1995, Mr Justice Rimmer, sitting in the High Court, ordered White to repay more than pounds 26,369,778, and pay pounds 2,188,600 in compensation, to insurers for Brinks-Mat, which had sued for the value of the proceeds of the robbery. White's wife was ordered to pay more than pounds 1m.

Operation Stealer involved a team of up to 30 Customs officers in long- term close surveillance of White and his associates, particularly his "lieutenant" and friend, John Short, 58.

Scotsman Brian Doran also came under scrutiny when he returned from Colombia towards the end of 1993. Doran initially set up bases in luxury London hotels. He was soon enjoying the high life, taking expensive holidays, and buying a yacht and a top-of-the-range car - always paying in cash.

Customs investigators painstakingly tracked the group's money movements - in Britain, Europe and to North and South America. Large amounts of cash were allegedly held under false names in safety deposit boxes.

By 1994, investigators were ready to spring a series of traps to capture the drugs smugglers in action.

In February, one of the gang was trailed to Madrid. A British Customs officer was on hand as Spanish police raided a hotel, where they found 35kg of cocaine and 100kg of cannabis resin.

The Customs undercover team, meanwhile, continued to track other suspects, knowing that more drugs consignments were bound for Britain.

In September, a two-pronged operation netted cocaine worth pounds 7m in a swoop at Dover, and cannabis worth pounds 250,000 in an operation at Fleet services on the M3.

Customs were later able to show that White had used a mobile phone from a pub to contact people involved in the smuggling, demonstrating his pivotal role as a controller.

In January 1995, the investigators snatched cocaine worth pounds 37m from a catamaran in Pevensey Bay, East Sussex.

When Operation Stealer finally closed in, White admitted his part in the Dover and Portsmouth smuggling plots. White was named as a "financier" of the Pevensey Bay plot.

Short admitted a sole charge of involvement in the Dover plot.

Judge John Foley, at Bristol Crown Court, yesterday began hearing mitigation on behalf of seven of the convicted men. He is to consider sentences on a further six convicted smugglers.