Jeweller jailed for pounds 20m gold-smuggling swindle

A former high street jeweller who recruited an ex-policeman and a hard-up solicitor to help smuggle nearly pounds 20m of gold into Britain was jailed for five years yesterday.

As the mastermind of one of the country's biggest bullion smuggling rings, Indian-born Jeevan Kanda, 38, led a gang which used a fleet of cars equipped with secret compartments to ferry in more than three tonnes of gold. After 18 months and 107 trips to Belgium to buy the consignments, he was a millionaire. Customs & Excise only found out about the swindle after it was all over.

Kanda, of Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, admitted one charge of conspiracy to evade pounds 3,420,777 in VAT. Former police constable Michael Gilmore, 54, who made 23 cross-Channel gold runs, was jailed for two years.