May.17, 2010, 10:00

A FORMER failed roofer from Newton Abbot who became an international drugs trafficker has been jailed for 26 years.

Golay Gonal lived the "high life" jetting around the world while masterminding a million pound cocaine ring in the Westcountry, a seven-week trial at Bristol Crown Court was told.

He masqueraded as a legitimate gem and art dealer — after studying gemology in prison — and enjoyed a lavish playboy lifestyle of fast cars, expensive suits and ostentatious jewellery. He even changed his name from Graeme Yeates to Golay Gonal, after an exclusive Swiss jewellery firm and the technical name for the structure of gemstones.

But his jet set life, which took him to Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa, was funded by importing kilos of cocaine into the Westcountry, the majority of which was distributed locally by his "lieutenants" in Devon.

Born in Wellington, Somerset, Gonal lived in Newton Abbot for a number of years. He ran a small roofing business, which went bust, and worked delivering clothes.

In 2002, while still living in Newton Abbot and working as a used car salesman, he was jailed for five years and ordered to forfeit more than £45,000 for dealing in cocaine.

He was released in September 2004 and moved to a rented house near Tiverton. There he recruited several lieutenants to help distribute cocaine and launder the proceeds.

Police suspicions were first raised in June 2006 when five people began changing thousand of pounds into euros in Newton Abbot and Exeter. Detective Constable Mark Sandford, of the force's economic crime unit, said the move was "a classic money laundering tactic".

Detectives pursued Gonal for two-and-a-half years, tracking hundreds of thousands of pounds transferred to him while he hid in Spain.

The 49-year-old was found guilty of conspiracy to supply and import controlled drugs, and money laundering.

Police have linked £500,000 to Gonal but believe his cocaine network may have been worth at least double that.

"Between 2005 and 2008, the money we have been able to identify totals around £500,000," said PC Sandford, "although quite clearly there would have been a lot more than that".

PC Sandford said Gonal was a confident personality. who lived the "high life", taking his Venezuelan girlfriend to Paris to celebrate the New Year and sporting a Cartier watch. In Devon, he owned a Jaguar and a Lotus sports car.

"He thought Golay Gonal was a name which gave him some panache," the detective added. "But in fact, nobody could really remember his name."

Four women and one man were later convicted of converting "criminal proceeds" and admitted they were changing money on behalf of Gonal. He fled the country the day after they were arrested, flying around the world to evade capture and continue drug dealing.

Police were handed a major new lead in January 2007 after the drug dealer's girlfriend was arrested at Bristol Airport. Amber Vazquez Zambrano was subsequently convicted of money laundering and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

After police smashed his Devon-based network, a European arrest warrant was granted in December 2008 and Gonal was arrested by Spanish police and extradited back to Britain in early 2009.