A wealthy haulage boss who transported £1.5million worth of cocaine across Europe has been jailed for 14 years and eight months.
Irishman Thomas Maher, 40, was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday over his role in moving cash and drugs across the continent.
Maher, of Warrington in Cheshire, pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy to commit a crime abroad at an earlier hearing.
The court heard that between March and May he played a role in conspiracies to transport a total of about £1.5m of cocaine from the Netherlands to Ireland, via the UK, and to launder about £1m cash between Ireland and the Netherlands.
The father-of-three used encrypted phone network Encrochat to plan the transportation, the court heard.
The secretive chat network which was accessed by law enforcement agencies across Europe earlier this year - leading to vast organised crime ring busts across Britain and the continent.
Sentencing Maher on Tuesday, Judge David Aubrey QC said: "You were an extremely important cog in the wheel of a sophisticated network of distribution of class A controlled drugs which had an international element.
"You were a trusted organiser, playing a part in where goods were to be exchanged, how parties would be able to identify each other when drugs were to be conveyed and how.
"Drugs cause desperation and misery, they are a cancer in our midst, but for those like you it matters not as long as financial profit is being achieved."
The judge said Maher, owner of Thomas Maher Transport Ltd, provided "expertise" from owning a haulage business within the operation.
Catherine Rabaiotti, prosecuting, said Maher was arrested at his home on June 13, the same day Encrochat issued an alert telling users it had been compromised.
Neither of the two Encrochat devices linked to him were recovered, the court heard.
She said: "Passwords, times, details of stops and prices were passed through the defendant acting as a middle-man for the parties."
Maher, who used the Encrochat handles Satirical and Snacker for his messages, was arrested in October last year after the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people found in a shipping container in Essex, but was never charged in connection with the deaths.
A spokesman for the National Crime Agency said officers seized vehicles including a high-end Range Rover, Land Rover Discovery and an imported Corvette worth £70,000 following his arrest.
He spent thousands on holidays to Dubai, Mexico and New York and while in Dubai bought artwork including a map of the world made up of bullets, the spokesman said.
