ONE of Britain’s biggest-ever cocaine rings worth a potential £4bn was run from an innocuous telephone box in the heart of Liverpool’s business district.

Nine Merseyside men were yesterday jailed for more than 200 years for their roles in the massive conspiracy.

It saw the Liverpool gang working with high-ranking London crooks and international drug dealers as they looked to flood the streets with 40 tonnes of cocaine from Columbia.

Their plan involved bringing the drugs over from Central America by sea with the illegal loads stashed in tins of fish or wood pellets.

Three times they tried but internal squabbles and mistakes meant that, despite hundreds of thousands of pounds changing hands, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) stopped them first.

Video: Nine Merseyside men among Britain's biggest ever cocaine rings worth £4bn

At the head of the Liverpool end of the scheme was Paul Taylor, 55.

He was watched driving from his Vauxhall home to a phone box opposite the Capital building in Old Hall Street to ring his London counterpart, Mehmet Baybasin – an established international drug dealer.

Soca’s officers listened in on calls between Taylor and Baybasin as they talked of “36s” (£36,000 for 1kg of cocaine) and buying “200 bits” (shipments of 200kg).

They watched from afar as Taylor headed to the capital to meet with Baybasin in an Elstree cafe and they looked on in astonishment as visitors to Taylor’s home – which was bugged – parked around the corner and then climbed over his back gate in the hope of not being seen.

The plan was hatched in July 2008 when Baybasin was to use his already established contacts in the global drugs game to supply between two and three tonnes of cocaine to Taylor and his Merseyside network.