Two men accused of conspiring to send drugs worth £500,000 to Australia are the innocent victims of a major international drugs ring, a jury heard.

Defence barrister Pether Griffiths QC said the case against David Hamberger, 58, and Scott Dawson, 29, was "pure speculation."

Out-of-work market trader Hamberger is alleged to have recruited Dawson, a shipping clerk at Crawley engineering firm KDG, to use his job as legitimate cover for a drug exporting racket.

He is accused of being middle man between Dawson and a man named Peter Godden-Wood.

Hamberger and Dawson were tracked by police in the weeks leading up to the failed shipment in April 2001, Hove Crown Court heard.

The box of drugs, containing 32,500 ecstasy tablets and 18kg of amphetamine sulphate powder, was found under Dawson's desk at KDG.

In an undercover operation, police replaced the drugs with dummies and watched Dawson as he repacked it and sent it on to Australia via a courier, the court heard.

They hoped to arrest the person who collected the box but were foiled by a corrupt Sydney customs official who tipped off the Australian end of the conspiracy, it is alleged.

Dawson, of Carlton Avenue, Bognor, said he had no idea the box was full of drugs and thought it contained innocent KDG marketing brochures.

He and Hamberger, from Barking, Essex, told police they were friends who had met in the last few weeks and were considering going into business together selling imported cigarettes.

In his closing statements to the jury, Mr Griffiths, defending Hamberger, said: "The Crown has not produced a shred of evidence linking either Mr Hamberger or Mr Dawson, or indeed Mr Godden-Wood, to Australia. No phone calls, no correspondence, nothing."

He added: "There is something fundamentally wrong with this case."

The jury was due to retire to consider its verdict today.