THE millionaire mastermind behind Britain's biggest cross-Channel bootlegging operation was jailed for six years and 10 months at the Old Bailey yesterday.

Beer baron Ellis Martin was told he would also have to pay a #3.32m assets confiscation order - the first made by a British court for smuggling alcohol. He was warned that he faced a further four years in jail if it was not paid within 36 months.

Martin, a 37-year-old father-of-two, used a front company and reams of expertly-forged paperwork to flood the country with nearly nine million cans of super-strength lager.

He defrauded Customs and Excise out of almost #5m duty and VAT.

Of his ill-gotten gains, #270,000 went on a plush home in Southgate, North London, and more on a wine bar, warehouse, and business premises in France.

He also controlled 14 bank accounts and had nine cars, including two Mercedes convertibles which he paid for in cash. About #2.2m is believed to have been secreted abroad.

Judge Valerie Pearlman told him: ``What you did was quite deliberate and a massive fraud on all decent citizens of this country.''

She ruled Martin had made #4.8m from his crimes, of which #3.32m was realisable.

Martin, who was convicted earlier this year of five charges of cheating Customs and Excise between November 1993, and June 1994, was also disqualified from being a company director for 10 years.

During his three-month trial, prosecuting counsel calculated that if all the beer cans involved in the case were piled on top of one another, they would create a 39-mile high stack - nearly eight times higher than Mount Everest.

Martin claimed the hundreds of thousands of cases of Carlsberg Special, Tennents Extra, Kestrel Super, and Hofmeister were destined for Russia, Nigeria, and Gibralter.

But numerous documents produced to back up his case were elaborate fakes.

The court heard that Martin headed an import-export company in Essex, specialising in soft drinks and beer.

In late 1993, he bought 27 lorry loads of duty-free beer from a bonded warehouse in the West Midlands, and avoided paying the duty by claiming it was to be exported via a similar storage facility in Kent.

However, the beer was sold to numerous cash and carry operators.

Early in 1994, his lucrative scheme was temporarily interrupted when he had to appear at the Old Bailey for a similar, though smaller, enterprise.

Undeterred by a 240-hour community service order, a large confiscation penalty, and a director's disqualification, he returned to his life of crime with a vengeance.

This time he refined his operation and evaded detection by shipping 230 lorry loads of beer from bonded warehouses in Britain to a front company he had set up in France.

He then brought them back into Britain, relying on the relaxation of EU border controls making the chance of them being examined minimal.

Once in Britain, the beer was again illegally diverted onto the open market.

But the sheer scale of the venture attracted the attention of the Customs, who mounted a three-month undercover operation codenamed Jeroboam.

After the case, Customs and Excise Minister David Heathcoat-Amory said: ``This is a first-class example of how Customs and Excise is protecting the legitimate trade in alcohol from fraudulent activities.

``The sentencing shows how seriously the courts take this illegal activity and is a clear warning to others.''

Customs spokesman Alan Jarrett added: ``Although the bootlegging of alcohol from the Continent is high profile at present, this case was in a different league. The organisation was highly professional.''