A Brentwood man, one of the UK’s most wanted fugitives, has been sentenced at the Old Bailey to 13 years, four months in prison for his role in a major international drug smuggling operation.

Anthony Dennis, aged 48, of Bassetts Lane, Ongar, Essex, who was captured earlier this year, plotted with criminals in the UK and overseas to import up to three tonnes of cocaine worth hundreds of millions of Euros into Europe.

Dennis and his co-conspirator Anthony Wilson, aged 38, of Chelsea Gardens, Harlow, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, were identified following an investigation by the National Crime Agency in cooperation with the Dutch National Police.

The men were regulars at the Café de Ketel in Rotterdam, which used its apparently legitimate façade to hide a global operations centre for international drug traffickers.

The café, run by two Turkish brothers, was open 18 hours a day.

It could only be entered via a buzzer system, was strictly for known faces, and provided a meeting place where criminals negotiated with cartel members and arranged the financing and transportation of huge quantities of drugs.

Dutch officers covertly recorded meetings in the café that proved Dennis and Wilson were sourcing cocaine from South America and arranging its transport in shipping containers carrying legitimate cargo.

The Turkish brothers and their criminal associates were then responsible for extracting the drugs using corrupt port officials, before moving and storing the consignments.

Dennis and Wilson’s plan unravelled when 67.5 kilos of cocaine was not extracted from a shipping container at Antwerp, Belgium, in May 2013.

The cocaine was later seized by the German authorities in Essen.

The Dutch investigation into the brothers and other criminals using the café continued, which resulted in multiple arrests in October 2013 when coordinated strikes took place in the UK and the Netherlands.

At the café, officers recovered two handguns, over 100 mobile phones, €300,000, a cash counting machine, a radio scanner, a radio jammer and high-value watches.

They seized nine handguns, two semi-automatic rifles, a cocaine press and €200,000 at other addresses in Rotterdam.

Wilson was arrested in the strikes but Dennis, who was in Spain at the time, went on the run which led to him being featured in the Operation Captura fugitive campaign.

He was arrested in August this year by the NCA when he flew back to the UK.

Dennis and Wilson were sentenced at the Old Bailey late yesterday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit a foreign drug trafficking offence.

Brendan Foreman, the NCA’s Regional Head of Investigations, said: "Dennis and Wilson joined forces with international criminals to bring up to three tonnes of cocaine into Europe, some of which was highly likely to have ended up on UK streets.

"They thought the café in Rotterdam was a safe place to conduct their operations but by working in partnership with the Dutch National Police the NCA was able to identify them and put a stop to their plan.”

Anthony Hill, specialist prosecutor in the CPS Organised Crime Division, said: "These men worked with criminals overseas to plan a large and complex drug-smuggling operation, plotting to bring up to three tonnes of cocaine from South America.

"If successful, this would have flooded the streets of Europe with drugs worth hundreds of millions of Euros.

"Their criminal activity was co-ordinated overseas, but so was the response from the criminal justice system.

"We worked closely with Dutch authorities and the National Crime Agency and the strength of our evidence left the defendants with no choice but to plead guilty.”

Dennis, who lived on Bassetts Lane, Ongar, Essex, before going on the run, and Wilson, of Chelsea Gardens, Harlow, Essex, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a foreign drug trafficking offence.

This relates to the seizure of 67.5 kilos at Essen in Germany.

The two Turkish brothers will stand trial in the Netherlands next year