This was the moment a sophisticated smuggling gang were snared during a multi-million pound drugs operation. Four men, including a high-level dealer, were arrested by National Crime Agency investigators as they unloaded a shipping container in Coventry in April.

The gang believed that 139 kilos of cocaine were hidden within the cargo of bananas, which had arrived in the UK from Ecuador. But the £11million-worth of drugs had already been seized by Border Force at London Gateway port.

The container was resealed and sent on its way to the West Midlands a few days later, where the crooks opened it, hoping to find the class A substance, Manchester Evening News reports.

Video footage showed one of the hoods, Florjan Ibra, ripping open the massive container from above with a crowbar, while accomplice Arman Kaviani used a forklift to join him. As the pair began to move boxes into an empty holdall bag, NCA officers moved in.

The drugs gang were unaware that the drugs had been seized days earlier. Shortly after the container's arrival in London, Robert Ball contacted the shipping line to get them to release four containers, including the one that originally held cocaine.

Ball, 59, was later found to have been acting on behalf of an Albanian organised crime group, the NCA said. He arranged for a haulage firm to collect and drive the containers to a storage company in Coventry.

Ball and his fellow crooks were unaware that they were now under surveillance from the NCA. He, Ibra, Kaviana, and another accomplice, Mirgent Shahu, arrived at the city on April 15.

Ball and Shahu directed the operation, giving instructions to Kaviani and Ibra at the site. But after opening the container, the two were nicked, despite leaping off the top in an attempt to flee. Ball and Shahu were also arrested.

NCA operations manager, David Phillips, said: “Ball and Shahu oversaw the nuts and bolts of this conspiracy on behalf of the organised crime group behind it. This group enlisted the assistance of Ibra and Kaviani, who they hoped would retrieve the drugs and make their efforts worthwhile.

“Unfortunately for these men, NCA officers were watching their every move before moving in to arrest them. Cocaine fuels violence and exploitation, including gang culture and firearm and knife crime in the UK and around the world.

“Removing this consignment from circulation will have been a sizeable blow to this criminal network, preventing them from generating profits that would have been invested in further criminality. We are determined to dismantle major international crime groups like this one from top to bottom.”

All four crooks were charged with cocaine importation offences. Ball and Shahu, 32, were convicted by a jury at Warwick Crown Court on May 26 this year. Ibra and Kaviani pled guilty at a previous hearing.

At the same court yesterday, Ball and Shahu were both sentenced to 18 years behind bars. Ibra, 30, and Kaviani, 37, had been jailed for 13-and-a-half years and 12 years and nine months, respectively, at previous hearings.

Caroline Hughes, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, added: “The offenders in this case were involved in a sophisticated criminal operation to import a significant amount of cocaine into the UK. The supply of drugs is motivated by greed.

"It is a lucrative business for those involved. It has disastrous consequences for those using drugs, their families and the community: a vast amount of crimes affecting the public are committed by users to pay for their habits.

“The CPS worked closely and effectively with the National Crime Agency to dismantle their dangerous operation, by building a strong case and bringing all of the offenders involved to justice. We will be pursuing confiscation proceedings against Robert Ball to recover the money he made from his criminality.”

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