Six people were jailed yesterday for their parts in a plot to flood the streets of Brighton and Hove with cocaine worth £5 million.

They belonged to a network of 16 smugglers and dealers run by Lorenzo Sirignano who headed one the biggest drugs rings in Sussex to date.

Sirignano, 51, was jailed for 24 years on Wednesday for trying to smuggle high purity cocaine from Brazil and Ghana. At the same time nine other members of the ring were sentenced to a total of 100 years for their roles in the operation.

Drugs smuggler Darren Waterman, 43, was yesterday given five years for transferring £46,000 of Sirignano's cash to Brazil to buy drugs.

Waterman, of Albert Road, Brighton, will serve the term alongside the five-and-a-half years he is already serving for drugs smuggling.

He was caught at Waterloo station after he got off a Eurostar train from Paris in October, 2006, with a kilo of cocaine destined for Sirignano.

Nigel Greening, 46, of Singleton Road, Brighton, was given six years for possessing cocaine with intent to supply.

Undercover police saw him pick up a £10,000 package of cocaine from Sirignano's "office" in Carlisle Road, Hove.

Greening was jailed for two years in 1979 for smuggling cannabis, Hove Crown Court heard yesterday.

Derek McQuade, 43, of Ringmer Road, Brighton, was caught with cocaine worth £28,000 in his car.

He was stopped in Newick Road, Brighton, after he was seen picking up the drugs from Sirignano's base. McQuade was jailed for four-and-half-years after admitting possessing cocaine with intent to supply.

Emmanuel Frimpong, 48, of Brunswick Square, Hove, was given three years for money laundering.

He denied knowing the £10,000 Sirignano asked him to send to Brazil was to pay for drugs.

Frimpong was found guilty after a two-week trial at Hove Crown Crown Court.

Addict Christopher Holmes, 44, of Vallance Gardens, Hove, was jailed for two-and-a-half years for supplying cocaine to a man sent to him by Sirignano.

Christopher Wall, 36, of Tilgate Close, Brighton, was given two-and-a-half years for conspiracy to smuìggle cocaine.

He was recruited to smuggle the drug from Brazil but pulled out.

Anthony Glass, QC, prosecuting, said Wall told police he rang customs officers and told them what he had been asked to do following threats to him and his family. Judge Paul Tain said: "He was the drugs mule who never was.

"He was prepared to become involved in the conspiracy but for reasons of self-preservation elected not to."

Sirignano, of Ferndale Road, Burgess Hill, and other members of his gang were arrested on February 19 last year.

They were waiting in the car park at Heathrow's Terminal Four for couriers to arrive from Ghana with cocaine worth £1.3 million. Undercover detectives had bugged his cars and spent months watching him as part of Operation Nash.

Judge Paul Tain told Sirignano: "The picture of you is one of a powerful Mr Big of the drugs world with links in Brazil, Ghana, London and locally. You distanced yourself from the offences by getting others to take the risks and do your dirty work."