A HAMPSHIRE man who played a leading role in a plot to smuggle tens of thousands of fake Viagra tablets into Britain is today starting a two-year prison sentence.

Kenny Bloom, 63, of Danebury Way, Nursling, was part of a multi-million-pound international plot to import vast quantities of the counterfeit sex drug from India.

Southampton Crown Court was told Bloom negotiated with an Indian businessman to bring a shipment of the pills into the country - even importing 14 tablets as a sample.

Tight government restrictions on the availability of Viagra, the drug prescribed for impotence sufferers, mean there is currently a huge market for illicit supplies.

Yesterday, the court was told Bloom planned to bring 250,000 tablets into the UK. After shipping costs, this would have made a profit of nearly £800,000.

However, the conspiracy was smashed following a long-running investigation by detectives from the elite National Crime Squad.

The pills looked so authentic they even had Pfizer, the trademark of the real Viagra's manufacturer, on them. Bloom, a father-of-four, had maintained his innocence until the eve of his October trial when he changed three of his five pleas to guilty.

He admitted conspiracy to apply false trade marks by putting the Viagra logo on tablets. He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute the same counterfeit Viagra, and possession of 14 tablets that had been found during a police raid at his home.

Jailing Bloom, Judge Jeremy Burford said: "Persons who should not have been prescribed the tablets could have picked them up with serious consequences."

Outside court, Det Sgt John Murray, of the National Crime Squad, said: "It's quite a reasonable sentence for the seriousness of the offence."