The mastermind of what police believe may be the UK’s largest ever cannabis smuggling ring has been convicted after seeing his empire crumble while on the run in Amsterdam.

Anthony Mills, 43, directed what prosecutors described as a 'Tesco-sized' enterprise out of Kingston, Surbiton, Epsom and Sutton homes and garages, and is facing jail after being convicted yesterday.

His clandestine gang hid skunk cannabis inside flower boxes delivered from Holland and redistributed them to major drug dealers across London.

Mills met his fellow ‘board members’ in places including Cafe Rouge in Esher and cafes in Wimbledon and Epsom, where they calculated their earnings – estimated to be worth £1m a week.

The ring made at least £22m in profit over the time they were followed by undercover police but prosecutors believe it may have been the tip of the iceberg.

When police swooped on his co-conspirators in November 2008 he fled to Amsterdam.

Drugs paraphanelia and cash - including money counting machines which had processed £10.2m in six months in an attic in Poplar Road, Sutton - were seized in Surbiton, Worcester Park, West Ewell and Ashtead.

Nearly £60,000 in notes was found rotting in an underground safe in Kingston.

Mills, originally from Beckenham, was finally arrested days before the rest of the organisation were sentenced in March 2010 when an international arrest warrant was issued.

At his trial at Southwark Crown Court he had tried to claim he was not in the inner circle of the gang.

But on Tuesday, June 28, he was found guilty of conspiracy to supply cannabis and hide the proceeds and Judge Gregory Stone told him he faced jail.

He will join his deputy Terry Bowler, of St Albans Road, Kingston, Mark Kinnimont, of Claremont Road, Surbiton, and Peter Moran, of Fulham Palace Road, Fulham, and others, behind bars, when he is sentenced on July 22.

Bowler was sentenced to 16 years despite his and other gang members conversion to become Samaritans or chaplains inside prison.

Officers are still trying to determine the scale of the gang’s assets, which include luxury homes in Lanzarote and money laundered out of the country to Switzerland, Dubai and Pakistan.

Criminal proceeds hearings will attempt to claw the money back with up to 10 year extensions of prison sentences if the criminals do not confess where they have stashed the cash.

During the 14-month undercover surveillance, dubbed Operation Karnak, led by Detective Sergeant Richard Southwell, Mills and Bowler were spotted having lunch with bank executives in Geneva, giving detectives a clue where to start looking for money.

The surveillance investigation discovered offshore accounts were created as far back as 2002.

At the last trial Judge Stone said: "Money of this scale doesn’t disappear into thin air."

For more on the background of the gang including hidden CCTV surveillance footage visit www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/drugs