Police used a mechanical digger yesterday to smash into the luxury home of one of the suspected kingpins behind a £100m (€135m) cocaine empire.

Officers swarmed inside after a hole was smashed in a wall surrounding the fortified £3m west London property.

Two Irish people were last night being quizzed by detectives in connection with the raids. The pair are understood to be long-term residents in England.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said it was not involved with the incident. Gardai also said that they were not involved.

The dawn raid was one of more than 30 that took place throughout the day at homes and businesses across London and the Home Counties.

Senior officers said the operation wiped out one of Britain’s biggest cocaine rings.

About 110kg of cocaine, with a street value of £5.5m, was seized as 22 people were arrested and several guns recovered.

Scotland Yard said the move, which involved 520 officers and took seven weeks to plan, was the largest simultaneous set of raids it has ever undertaken.

Detective Superintendent Steve Richardson, who was responsible for the operation, said the raids were the final blow to dismantle the network.

He described the gang as “ruthless and determined criminals” who profited from illegal drugs.

He said: “We believe this network has been supplying drugs around the country, earning millions of pounds every week.”

The operation, codenamed Eaglewood, followed six months of surveillance and information-gathering by Scotland Yard’s elite specialist intelligence section.

Police targeted the heads of several well-established gangs who came together to create a ‘clearing house’ to launder drug profits.

Money

Mr Richardson said criminals laundered more than £100m of drug money through a network of foreign exchange bureaus and other financial businesses. But their success at selling drugs created problems with the quantity of money they were forced to handle.

As a result, members would exchange suitcases full of €500 banknotes, the world’s highest-value note.

The cash, now in more manageable smaller and lighter packages, would then be taken to Europe and invested in property and bank accounts.

Police said the gang used a taxi business, based in a shabby breezeblock building, as their headquarters.

Officers said up to £4m passed through the innocuous taxi company every week.

Police said the mechanical digger was brought in because of extra security at the double-fronted house, in Vine Lane, Hillingdon.

Officers used circular saws and sledgehammers to break through metal gates over the front and rear doors as a helicopter lit the scene by spotlight.

A 40-year-old man and another younger man, believed to be his son, were arrested at the property and taken to a north London police station.

Other properties in central London, Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire were also raided.

In West Molesey, a 54-year-old man of Egyptian origin, suspected of acting as a financial middleman for the gang, was arrested.

Police revealed more than 20 people had been arrested prior to yesterday as officers seized almost £3m, 70kg of cocaine and four guns.

Officers refused to say where in the world the cocaine and cannabis were imported from, but said the supply was sold on across the UK.

As the raids took place, police moved to freeze bank accounts and access to properties across mainland Europe.

Among those arrested were men with British, Israeli, Iraqi, Egyptian and Irish backgrounds.

- Chris Greenwood in London