Encrochat messages exposed a smuggler who sourced 117 million Polish cigarettes to be sold on the black market in the UK.
Maciej Dzikowski, 49, was found to be behind an operation that saw lorries bring cigarettes illegally into the country in hidden compartments.
The lorries then made three deliveries a week to storage units in Liverpool, Rochdale and Haslingden and to a farm in Loughborough.
READ MORE: Everton footballer arrested on suspicion of child sex offences has bail extended again
Lorries were fitted with fake loads of plasterboard with hidden compartments for the cigarettes or had false paperwork to disguise the load as frozen food.
Police report that Dzikowski dodged £36 million in tobacco duty and taxes during the operation.
Dzikowski, from Brentford, was jailed after the Encrochat messages helped prove he smuggled the cigarettes between March and June 2020.
He was found to have exploited the first three months of lockdown by sourcing Polish-made cigarettes to be used for the smuggling operation where they would be sold on the black market.
Gang members also sent approximately £8 million in cash out of the country during the first lockdown in 2020, including £1.6 million which was seized by officers at Dover in May 2020.
The illegal operation was so big that it reportedly took five-hour sessions for gang members to count cash and they wore face masks to protect themselves from the dust thrown up.
Encrochat messages also included incriminating images of gang members hiding cash in supermarket bags and unloading cigarettes using forklift trucks.
Lorries that made deliveries to storage units in Liverpool contained fake loads of plasterboard with hidden compartments for the cigarettes or had false paperwork to disguise the load as frozen food.
Cash was also handed over in car parks and lay-bys.
The EncroChat messages revealed the true meanings behind some of the code words used on.
Police found that cash was called paper, £10,000 was known as a sandwich, and the lorries transporting the cash were called sandwich taxis.
The UK was nicknamed The Wild Country or The Island.
Dzikowski pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court and was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison.
Two other men Hazhar Mohammad-Pani, 31, and Hubert Smolarek, 41, from Rochdale, were jailed for a total of more than 14 years in November 2021.
