A tug boat captain and his second in command caught with a £512m cocaine haul have been jailed for a total of 44 years.

The haul was found hidden in the MV Hamal tug boat, which was intercepted by a Royal Navy warship around 100 miles off the coast of Aberdeen.

Captain Mumin Sahin, 46, and gangmaster Emin Ozmen, 51, were found guilty at the High Court in Glasgow last month of running an international drug smuggling ring after the massive haul was seized.

They were convicted of smuggling the drug on board the Hamal vessel, as well as a second charge of being concerned in the supply of the drug.

It was believed to be the biggest class A drugs seizure in the UK when it was intercepted in the operation led by the National Crime Agency on a tip-off from French authorities.

They returned to court on Friday to learn their fate with Sahin jailed for 22 years and Ozmen handed a 20-year jail term.

Judge Lord Kinclaven told the men the quantity of drugs was "not only significant but massive" and drugs trafficking had a "devastating impact" on people and communities.

He said: "You were involved in a most serious operation of commercial scale involving the transportation of cocaine by ship, in an operation which crossed international and indeed intercontinental boundaries."

He told the ship's captain Sahin, he was "not at the top of the drugs tree" but had played an important role in the offence, while second captain Ozmen's role was "to some extent a lesser one".

Once the tug was escorted to Aberdeen harbour, a human chain of law enforcement officials was formed to move 129 bales of cocaine weighing a total of 3.2 tonnes once they had been removed from the boat using a crane.

It had been found in a modified ballast tank which was behind a secret panel inside the vessel's medical bay.

The Turkish crew of the boat were accused of being involved in an international drug-running operation by smuggling cocaine from Istanbul in Turkey via Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Spain, to South America, and then to the North Sea between February and April 2015.

Last month, four others - Ibrahim Dag, 48; Kayacan Dalgakiran, 64; Mustafa Guven, 48, and Umit Colakel, 39 - were given not proven verdicts after the 12-week trial before Lord Kinclaven.

Three other crew members - Mustafa Ceviz, 55; Abdulkadir Cirik, 32; and Muhammet Seckin, 27 - were cleared earlier in the trial after the same charges were thrown out.

Crown Agent, David Harvie said: "The international drugs trade does not respect borders, and those of us whose job it is to dismantle it are working ever-closer together to ensure we stay one step ahead.

"Scotland's reach in pursuing criminals is on a truly global scale and in this case we have dealt a substantial economic blow to organised criminals.

"The Hamal was identified after an intelligence tip-off from French authorities, and swift cooperation from the attorney general in Tanzania where the ship was registered allowed it to be boarded.

"Our investigation then stretched from Guyana, who provided access to crucial shipping records, to Spain, who gave us crucial information on the ship's stop-offs in the Canary Islands.

"We also worked with colleagues in Denmark, Norway and the United States to piece specific elements of the evidence together.

"Scotland is well-placed in this increasingly connected world to identify, apprehend and prosecute all those who seek to profit from crime in our jurisdiction, and we will continue to work with our agencies at home and abroad to build on this strength."