A businessman who helped orchestrate Britain's biggest bootlegging operation - worth #20m and centred round a warehouse in Paisley - was jailed for six years yesterday.

Tofail Ahmed, 52, and a gang of conspirators flooded the market with cut-price wine, beer and spirits, during eight months in 1995, Southwark Crown Court heard.

They devised a ''sophisticated'' plan to avoid paying duty by purporting to show the drink had been sent abroad from Britain and was not subject to any charge, the jury was told during the three-month trial.

Instead the alcohol was driven to a warehouse in Paisley before being diverted to other distribution centres in London and West Bromwich, west Midlands where they were sold to Cash and Carry outlets and traders.

The gang allegedly fleeced Customs and Excise out of a ''conservative'' #20m in lost duty.

During the trial, which cost #3m, the jury heard from 70 witnesses and saw thousands of pages of documentary evidence.

Lawyers also read the statements of at least 50 witnesses who did not attend court.

Ahmed, of Westview Drive, South Woodford, Essex - who owns warehouses in Calais and Germany - was convicted of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue, which he had denied. Jurors took 15 hours over three days to find him guilty.

Judge Jeffrey Rucker said: ''You are highly intelligent, you have great administrative abilities and considerable energy and despite your illness, all these qualities were perverted to further this huge fraud.''

He said Ahmed had cheated the public out of vital revenue.

''The seriousness of this fraud has to be measured in the loss to the public revenue ... how much would the Government have been able to spend on new hospital wings, running a couple of schools, the defence of the realm and the welfare state. Your activities deprived the public of in excess of #20m.''

Judge Rucker said he had considerably reduced Ahmed's sentence to take account of his failing health.

The bootlegging involved hoodwinking Customs and Excise officials into believing that alcohol bought from bonded warehouses in the UK had been sent to Italy, Germany, and Spain. The drink included Tennent's Extra and other high alcohol beers which attracted the highest duty.

The gang forged paperwork purporting to come from foreign warehouses and set up companies in Britain and abroad to act as a front for the plot, the court heard.

Ahmed and dozens of suspects were arrested on August 21, 1995, after a month's surveillance in Operation Fluke.

Sunil Gopalan, 32, of Manor Park, east London, was jailed for three years after he was convicted of the same charge.

In March this year the bootlegging operations mastermind Avtar Hare was jailed for five-and-a-half years after admitting the charge.

The jury was told Ahmed went to Germany in late 1994 with an employee's wife to set up a company in her name. The majority of the bootleg drink passed through that firm's books. Ahmed forged documentation to support bogus claims that he had received the alcohol.

Mr Richard Sutton, prosecuting, said the gang used haulage companies to divert loads.

At the warehouse in Paisley, the seals on shipments were broken and lorries immediately turned around. Mr Sutton said documents had to show the alcohol had reached its European destination. These were forged and returned to the original bonded warehouses.

The jury was told the bootleggers banked up to #400,000 cash a day, which they stuffed in empty wine boxes. The cash was collected from one of a number of outlets Hare was a director of, Hare Wines in Leyton, east London and delivered to Ahmed.

Hare, 35, of Loughton, Essex, admitted his part in the crime at the start of the trial in March.

Hare Wines also had premises in Harrow, west London, and Barking, east London, selling liquor to the drinks trade and a complex in West Bromwich which was used as a distribution centre.

Another accomplice haulier, Alex Windsor, 42, of Eltham, was jailed earlier this year for three years after he pled guilty to three sample charges of fraudulent evasion of duty.

The jury were discharged from returning a verdict in respect of a second charge of conspiracy to defraud bonded warehouses, while three counts of fraudulent evasion of duty which Ahmed alone was accused of were ordered to be left on the court file.