An international drug dealer has been jailed for 13 years on Tuesday after his arrest in Colindale, in what police describe as the biggest ever operation of its kind.

Owen Clarke, of Rugby Avenue, Sudbury, was jailed following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police's Operation Trident, which tackles drug-related gun crime in the black community.

Clarke, also known as Father Fowl, ran an international crack cocaine importation and distribution network worth an estimated £100million from his relatively modest home.

On June 26 last year, police followed Clarke to a flat used as a safe house in Chequers Close, Colindale. Trident officers lay in wait and entered the premises shortly after he had gone inside, arresting Clarke and 24-year-old man. A bowl was found containing a slowly-solidifying substance later found to be crack cocaine and a package of previously-prepared crack cocaine.

Officers seized £1,000 in cash from inside the flat and another £1,000 from inside Clarke's Mercedes. Half a kilogram of crack cocaine was recovered from the address. Clarke's smuggling network included a Grahame Park man who was jailed in 2002.

Antonio Ferreira, 35, of Satchell Mead, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment for importing cocaine at Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex in February 2002.

One of the links in Clarke's drug dealing operation, Ferreira was arrested at Gatwick airport in 2001 with three others in the first stage of Operation Jasle, which was ultimately targeting Clarke.

Clarke was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to the UK 14 years ago.

He was found guilty of two counts of possession with intent to supply crack cocaine, one count of supplying crack cocaine and one count of conspiracy to manufacture crack cocaine at Snaresbrook Crown Court last Friday (June 11).

Trident head Chief Superintendent John Coles said: "This operation is by far the biggest and most successful we have so far undertaken.

"It has meant a major international drugs ring has been taken out of operation, disrupting the supply of crack cocaine from the Caribbean to London and the rest of the UK."

Clarke is thought to have hidden his fortune in off-shore accounts, and an investigation has begun trying to track it down ahead of a confiscation hearing due to take place later in the year.