A drugs gang was today sentenced to a total of 25 years for attempting to smuggle £40,000 of cocaine into Leeds-Bradford Airport.

The gang-of-four – three Somali men and a Portuguese woman – were jailed for the plot to smuggle 380 grammes of the drug from Equador.

Their plan was foiled when officers from the UK Border Agency at the Yeadon airport caught drugs mule Lina Isabel Alves De Aguiar, 34, as she entered the UK on July 19 last year. She had arrived via Amsterdam and had the cocaine hidden in her luggage, Leeds Crown Court heard.

An international investigation led to the arrest of three other gang members. They were Ahmad Jumbe Darish, 27, a failed asylum seeker, Abdullah Omary, 28, both of Coventry, and Ahmed Farrah-Awad, 34, of Leicester.

Both Omary and Farrah-Awad were both living in the UK legally.

Alves De Aguiar and Darish pleaded guilty to the offences in December last year. Omary and Farrah-Awad were found guilty following a trial in May.

Ahmed Farrah-Awad, who was central to the overall organisation of the scheme, and Abdullah Omary were jailed for seven and a half years each. Ahmad Jumbe Darish and Lina Isabel Alves De Aguiar, who had previously pleaded guilty, both received five years.

Alves De Aguiar had acted as the courier, with Darish, Omary and Farrah-Awad acting as her ‘minders’.