A trio of drug dealers has been jailed for 12 years for being part of a gang that flooded £21 million of cocaine onto the streets of Britain.

Nathan Matheson, of Bracknell, William James, of Crowthorne, and Richard Wilmot of Ascot were all hauled before the courts for major drug crimes in the south east.

Ringleader of the group Patrick Ince, 57, and his gang distributed nearly 24st (150 kilos) of cocaine and handled around £4.5 million in cash, while supplying smaller quantities of ketamine to areas around Berkshire and the south east.

Ince and fellow drug gang member Mark Eldridge, 53, employed trusted couriers Anthony Smith, 77, and Michael Kelleher, who has since died.

They also shipped drugs to the Berkshire dealers James, 35, and Wilmot, 42, while Nathan Matheson, 35, was a courier who stashed drugs for James.

All but one member of the gang were found to BE using EncroChat - an encrypted messaging service used by crooks to hide their chats from the authorities.

Between them, James and Wilmot supplied £3.5million worth of cocaine throughout the capital and Berkshire, as well as around two-and-a-half stone (15 kilos) of ketamine - worth a potential £600,000 to dealers.

The pair also laundered over £1million in cash linked to the drug dealing of the huge quantities of narcotics.

All of the men were arrested at their homes last April 21, except for Ince, who went on the run before being tracked down in Plumstead, south east London, six months later and Smith who was in prison on remand for other crimes.

Five members had already been jailed for a total of 68 years, which can now be revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted by a judge following the sentencing of Ince.

At Kingston Crown Court on Thursday, April 7,  Ince, from Dartford, Kent, was jailed for 20 years.

Eldridge, Ince's right-hand man, from West Wickham, south east London, was also jailed for 20 years in January, along with four other members of the gang.

James, of Crowthorne, Wilmot from Ascot, Matheson from Bracknell, all in Berkshire, and Smith of Greenhithe, Kent, were all jailed for 12 years each.

Andrew Tickner, from the NCA's Organised Crime Partnership, said: "Patrick Ince, along with his right-hand man Mark Eldridge, arranged the movement of cocaine worth tens of millions of pounds.

"The tentacles of their gang stretched across the UK, enabling drugs to seep into communities where they would drive high levels of violence and intimidation.

"Our investigation tore this organised crime group apart and in doing so removed a significant wholesale supplier for dealers across the country."