BRITAIN'S biggest drug baron, who has been jailed for 30 years, stored tonnes of cocaine in a safe house in Ringwood.

Following an 11-year investigation spanning four continents, crime boss Brian Brendan Wright, 60, was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court having been convicted of conspiracy to evade prohibition on the importation of a controlled drug and conspiracy to supply drugs.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison on each of the two counts, to run concurrently.

In the 1990s Wright reigned over a drug smuggling empire which customs officers claim was "probably the most sophisticated and successful global cocaine trafficking organisation ever to target the UK".

His gang used luxury yachts to smuggle shipments of cocaine from Venezuela into British waters where their cargo was unloaded on to smaller boats and smuggled into Poole and Lymington, in a process known as coopering.

Irish-born Wright also used a house in Ringwood and a garage in Christchurch to store huge quantities of cocaine until they could be distributed.

During the trial, a gang member currently in prison in America, Godfried Pappy' Hoppenbrouwers, who knew Wright as Mr Big, told how he had to look after 300kg of cocaine stored in the garage of a rented house in Grange Road, Christchurch in 1995.

The court heard how, in 1998 the gang hatched a plan to swamp the south coast of England with the deadly drug.

The yacht Ramarch, from the Lymington area, was hired for coopering drugs from a flotilla of three boats carrying cocaine from south America.

At the end of August the Ramarch sailed from Poole at night and met with the first of the three yachts just off the coast of Studland Bay, where it picked up 600kg of cocaine.

So many blocks of cocaine were unloaded in the next few days that the gang had to use every cupboard in the safe house in Ringwood and the entire loft space.

The gang then attempted to hide their traces, returning the Ramarch to its marina and another yacht to Cobb's Quay in Poole.

Wright fled to Cyprus in 1999 when his empire started to collapse, but he was not arrested until 2005 when he went to Spain.

The investigation started when a yacht called Sea Mist was found off Ireland carrying 599kg of cocaine with a street value of about £80m and apparently destined for a safe house in Kings Saltern Road, Lymington.

The investigation brought several other members of the gang to justice, including Wright's son, Brian Anthony Wright, 39, who is serving 16 years for the importation of cocaine.

Sentencing Wright, Judge Peter Moss said: "I accept that you will be a very much older man when you are entitled to be released.

"I accept, too, the possibility that you may not live that long."