THE team leading the world in defending our ports against smugglers gave the Daily Post a glimpse behind the scenes yesterday.

The National Deep Rummage Team (NDRT) is the group responsible for rooting out Class A drugs, human trafficking and weapons being shipped into the UK.

The fearless rummagers lower themselves into the darkened, often lethal bowels and engine rooms of commercial vessels in search of ingeniously stashed contraband.

The select band, based at the Huskisson Dock, Bootle, are in many ways the heart of the national operation.

Led by Paul Tunney, MBE, senior manager at NDRT, they train the rest of the UK Border Agency.

They have been in existence for more than 20 years and have seized close to 450kg of Class A drugs, worth £20m.

Their techniques and experience have become so successful that they now export them worldwide, earning plaudits from Norway to Columbia.

Mr Tunney said: “The group from Norway went back from a training session and a couple of weeks later they called us saying they used our techniques to discover a massive drugs haul.

“It was big enough to feature on Norwegian television for three consecutive nights.”

Their skills resulted in the biggest haul of cannabis resin ever found in the UK last year, 12.5Štonnes on board an ocean-going tug at Portsmouth.