TWO men have been found guilty of trying to smuggle 18 kilos of cocaine from Bolivia to Torquay.

Welder Mark Lang, 37, of Pendennis Road, Torquay, and farmhand Peter Ferguson, 57, from Liverpool, brought drugs with a street value of £2.2million into the country.

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The cocaine was hidden in the piston of a hydraulic press sent from South America to the workshop of Taylor Made Gates on Newton Road, a business owned by Lang.

Both men denied the charge, as did a third defendant Daryl Wilson, 33, a security door fitter from Queensway, Torquay.

The jury took three hours to find Lang and Ferguson guilty of conspiring together to fraudulently evade the prohibition of importation of a Class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and in contravention of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.

Wilson was acquitted of the same charge.

The five-day trial was told how the drugs were discovered hidden in a metal press by officials at Frankfurt Airport in Germany.

They were removed at Heathrow Airport but the press was reassembled and taken to its destination address at Taylor Made Gates.

Officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency then mounted a surveillance operation to see who would pick up the press.

It lay unwrapped on a pallet for several days in a deliberate attempt to flush out any interest from police.

SOCA planted a listening bug and on the morning of January 16 officers heard Lang, Ferguson and another man, Ricardo Gomez, opening the package and dismantling the press.

At 11.10am local police and SOCA officers raided the workshop and arrested the three men.

The working press used to conceal the drugs bored the fake company name of Torbol, a combination of Torquay and Bolivia.

The company did not exist but a cargo firm paid to bring it through Heathrow had been given a glossy company brochure to make it seem genuine.

It was claimed Ferguson had arranged for Gomez, known as 'the mechanic', to fly to the UK a few days before to dismantle the press and extract the drugs.

Gomez admitted his part in the plot and did not stand trial.

Ferguson said he thought the press would contain cannabis.

He claimed he was asked by a businessman from his native Liverpool to take out the cannabis and drive it up to Liverpool.

Lang, who refused to give evidence, told police he had been asked by an unnamed man to take delivery of a press but had no idea it contained drugs.

Wilson denied any knowledge of the press or drug smuggling.

The prosecution said Wilson knew both men and was the 'go-between' allowing Lang and Ferguson to stay in contact by passing messages between them.

But the jury did not agree and he walked free from court.

Police said the gang wanted to extract the drugs for onward sale in the UK.

Ferguson, Lang and Gomez are due to be sentenced today.