TWO members of a criminal gang who tried to smuggle more then £10 million-worth of cocaine hidden in scrap metal have been jailed.

Dutch authorities in 2008 seized a shipment of the class A drug welded inside metal blocks hidden among the scrap.

A further shipment stored in the same way was found in a ship at Rotterdam dock the following October.

Officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) replaced the drugs with sand in order to trace the shipment’s final destination.

Gang member Brendan Coates had checked the status of the shipment and asked for it to be delivered to an address in Leytonstone.

He then paid the shipping company £9,000 for the consignment of scrap metal, which was only worth £600.

Undercover SOCA officers recorded footage as the consignment arrived and Coates was seen helping to unload.

The metal was then transferred to an isolated farm in Essex, where Coates, of Leeds, Christopher Foile, of Essex, and Neil Tindling, of Bishops Stortford, were arrested as they began opening the containers with metal cutters.

Tindling was jailed for 22 years and Folie received an 8-year sentence.

Coates is yet to be sentenced.