Beau Devlin, 33, was jailed for 17 years alongside his partner in crime, 44-year-old Matthew Byrne from Sevenoaks after pleading guilty to drugs and money laundering offences at Maidstone Crown Court.
The court heard how the pair went by handles when communicating on the encrypted communications platform EncroChat.
Devlin was referred to as ‘scalpcleaner’ whilst Byrne went by ‘slickvalley’ and ‘officialcleaner’.
The chats revealed an attempt to import roughly five tons of cocaine between March 2020 and June 2020 via a number of ports in Europe, including Antwerp and the UK.
The pair also discussed their contacts within the criminal world, including a firearms dealer, South American cocaine wholesalers, and more.
The cocaine was disguised under cover as banana consignments from companies they had created to appear less suspicious.
Devlin had been instructed by Byrne to burn pallets that contained the fruit used as part of dummy runs because they could not sell this legitimately.
The fruit dummy tests are believed to have cost £300,000 alone.
Their smuggling fantasies included discussions of using ‘plug cars’ by recommendation of Byrne, with specially constructed concealments to stash drugs and money.
The 44-year-old communicated with a handle called ‘the plugboss’ who built these modified vehicles.
Byrne’s criminal associate contacts were extensive, with messages revealing a conversation with another contact about the pay for lorry drivers at £50,000 each for their role in smuggling 250 kilos of cocaine.
He also traded in prohibited weapons and discussed buying Mac 11 submachine guns.
One of his contacts, Jody Hall of Carters Hill Close, Mottingham, was jailed for twelve years in 2020.
Encrypted chats showed detectives that in one instance, Byrne and Devlin had paid £3 million for a 600 kilo cocaine load which would have fetched a higher price in the UK.
Their large profits were laundered through Chris O’Shea, an owner of a jewellers in Hatton Garden.
The launderer was also active on EncroChat, operating under the handle of ‘allstargin’.
The pair exchanged their drug money with O’Shea for clean money, gold bars and designer watches.
Devlin was responsible for transferring the cash and gold to and from O’Shea, and requested £100,000 in clean, new, £20 notes in exchange for a three per cent commission for O’Shea.
O’Shea, 56, of Avery Hill Road, New Eltham pleaded guilty to money laundering and drugs offences last year and was jailed for eleven years.
Devlin and Byrne were arrested in October 2020, with officers seizing £20,000 in cash from Byrne’s bedside table, details of large sums of cash in various bank accounts, an EncroChat phone and a new Jaguar car.
They discovered that he was also building a home next door.
Behind a reinforced door at Byrne’s girlfriend’s address, designer clothing and villa sale leaflets for properties in Portugal were discovered.
A search of Devlin’s home in Weald Road, Sevenoaks turned up CS spray, a surveillance bug detecting kit, designer items and around £5,000 in cash.
Andrew Tickner said: “Matthew Byrne and Beau Devlin were at the pinnacle of this highly sophisticated and organised criminal group.
READ MORE: Second victim of fatal A13 crash named in court as ‘kind, selfless’ dad
“They were responsible for flooding the UK’s streets with enormous quantities of cocaine via their contacts for onward sale, laundering the profits via gold and expensive watches.
“They were across every stage of the drugs’ journey from South America, going to the trouble of organising dummy runs in an attempt to trick law enforcement into believing that they were running a legitimate business.
“Although Byrne’s firearms venture would have made him a useful contact to those in the criminal underworld, it’s chilling to think about the violence and intimidation these weapons would have unleashed.”
