A millionaire restaurant owner has been jailed for running a cocaine empire.

Anacleto Carpetta, owner of the popular Leonardo in Hove, turned his restaurant into a cocaine takeaway.

He boasted that his business and property interests in Brighton and Hove were worth more than £1 million pounds.

But today he is starting an eight-year prison sentence after greed for money got the better of him.

Carpetta tried to boost his bank balance by building a drugs empire in the city, a court heard.

Salvatore Consiglio, head waiter at the Italian restaurant in Church Road, has also been jailed for three years for acting as a go-between for his boss.

They were arrested when police raided the restaurant in April as shocked customers watched in disbelief.

Diners were ordered to remain at their tables while police searched the premises.

Carpetta, 39, and Consiglio, 29, of Holland Road, Hove, admitted being concerned in the supply of cocaine and appeared at Lewes Crown Court for sentence yesterday.

Alongside them were drug couriers Jean Momendeng and his raven-haired girlfriend Tatiana Julieth Mesa-Lopez.

Carpetta had ordered a kilo of cocaine worth £75,000 from Colombian drug barons in London.

Mesa-Lopez and Momendeng acted as "mules" when they brought the drug to Brighton.

It was found concealed in a box of Kellogg's Coco-Pops when the lovers were arrested as they stepped off a train at Preston Park.

Carpetta was waiting for them outside the station in his blue BMW, unaware the couriers were already under arrest.

Undercover officers watched as he drove off after repeated calls to Mesa-Lopez's mobile phone went unanswered.

Momendeng, 25, also laundered more than £9,000 through his bank account, the court heard.

He was jailed for six years and Colombian-born Mesa-Lopez for five years for her part in the plot.

Richard Cherryl, prosecuting, said Carpetta had wanted the undercover officer who he was trying to supply, to buy 50 kilos of the drug a year from him.

Mr Cherryl said: "Mr Carpetta said he was building a business. He said he had a million-pound restaurant and a million pounds in property.

The officer agreed to buy a kilo of cocaine from him for £24,500."

Consiglio picked up the drugs after meeting a man on a motorbike in First Avenue, Hove.

He arrived at Leonardo with the drugs in a back pack and handed them over to an undercover officer posing as a buyer.

The deal gave the green light for officers waiting in vans nearby to charge in.

Members of the Sussex Police crime and drug unit burst in and ordered startled customers to put down their cutlery and keep their hands on tables.

Police afterwards apologised for interrupting meals and while some customers praised the officers, not everyone was satisfied.

One man in his 70s said: "Between 12 and 18 policemen burst open the door, yelling at the top of their voices.

"They were all in armour and then another wave of them in crash helmets burst in. They would not answer any questions.

"There were children there and one elderly lady had a heart condition but the police took no notice whatsoever.

"There was no regard to ordinary members of the public minding their own business."

Chief Superintendent Graham Cox, head of Sussex CID, later said he was sorry if distress was caused but he made no apology for the raid.

He said: "Cocaine and crack cocaine are often considered harmless, recreational drugs. The reality is they destroy lives and damage society."

Operation Childers was the culmination of weeks of intelligence gathering on Carpetta, 39, who lived with his wife and three children in Sackville Road, Hove.

Carpetta, originally from Sicily, had lived in the UK for 15 years.

He started out in restaurant kitchens in Brighton and worked his way up to owning his own.

Friends described him as a "truly nice and decent bloke".

Detective Constable Nigel Waller, one of those who led the operation has told how Carpetta was driven to drugs by greed and a love of cocaine.

Carpetta snorted the drug and started selling it at Leonardo's months before police moved in.

The restaurant, with people coming in and leaving all the time, was the perfect cover.

Customers could order a pizza and, with a nod and wink, walk out with takeaway cocaine.

Consiglio later admitted his involvement and told police he had only known the bag contained drugs when it was opened at the restaurant.

Jeremy Gold, defending Carpetta, said Carpetta had lost not only his liberty but the respect of his family and he would also lose financially.

Mr Gold said Leonardo had become an instant success after Carpetta launched it with a business partner in 1996.

He said: "Mr Carpetta had, for some time, been a recreational user of cocaine. As business pressures increased so did his use of the drug.

"It led him to reach the view he was invincible and could do almost anything."

He was easily persuaded it would be profitable if he became involved in the supply of cocaine after he was approached by a Colombian earlier this year.

Carpetta claimed his main regret was that he had got Consiglio involved.

Sentencing Carpetta, Judge Anthony Hayward told him: "The motive quite clearly was greed for the money you thought you would make."