'Bling' drug gang jailed

LONDON - Fourteen members of an international cocaine smuggling conspiracy, dubbed the "Bling Bling Gang" for their love of flash jewellery, have been jailed for a total of 178 years.

An investigation by London police, the French National Drugs Squad and the American Drug Enforcement Agency finally broke the gang, which had been shipping millions of pounds worth of drugs each week.

The gang used mainly women couriers, often single mothers or drug addicts. Cocaine paste and liquid cocaine was smuggled from the Caribbean into the US and Europe.

The British-based members of the gang were thought to have imported nearly £50 million ($132 million) of cocaine over two years.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard the main British conspirators were Clyde "Cruel" Benjamin, 30, Bernard "Kofi" Clarke, 31, Ian Dundas-Jones, 35, and Lisa Bennett, 39.

Sentences ranged from 27 years for Dundas-Jones to 30 months for a minor gang member.

Detectives found more than £1 million ($2.6 million) of crack in the gang's east London cocaine factory, cut and ready for sale.

- REUTERS