TEN men convicted of attempting to smuggle 12.5 tonnes of cannabis resin worth £36m into Southampton stashed in a rusty tugboat were jailed for a total of 83 years today.

The smugglers were caught after an international operation shadowed the boat as it travelled from Morocco.

Six of the men were found guilty by a jury at Winchester Crown Court while four other gang members, including three men who were due to receive and distribute the drugs, pleaded guilty at earlier hearings.

All were charged with offences relating to the illegal importation of a class C controlled drug.

Boat captain Israeli Moshe Kedar, 81, was jailed for nine years, and gang leader Mordechai Hersh, 67, was jailed for eight years. Serbian crew member Dragan Stankovic, 54, was jailed for 10 years, Goram Otovic, 54, was jailed for nine years, Dusan Mileusnic, 49, was jailed for seven years and Negovan Jovanovic, 58, was jailed for seven years. These men were all found guilty by the jury.

Another gang leader Israeli Yehezkel Srebro, 57, was jailed for nine years after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing.

Three men from Leicester were among those locked up. They were internet entrepreneur Anjum Nazir, 39, jailed for eight years and brothers Mohinder Rai, 45, and Baljinder Rai, 41, who were jailed for eight years each. Two Ukrainians were acquitted.

The trial heard that an Israeli organised crime gang employed an eastern European crew to transport the drugs.

Investigators who boarded the Abbira at the American Wharf marina on the River Itchen spent five days recovering 419 bales of cannabis.

The carefully-packaged drugs had been stuffed into tanks designed to hold fresh water, foam for fire fighting and ballast.

The April 2008 cannabis seizure was one of the largest ever.