Nicola Tallent

We spoke to some of the NCA officers who were involved in taking Bomber down, including one who was tasked with following the money.

It was a job that took him across international borders.

Officers who went through the rows of designer gear in Bomber's gated mansion were astonished at the sheer scale of luxury goods.

The drug proceeds had been splurged on luxury and security in almost equal measure.

The place was sealed, reinforced doors, bulletproof glass and cameras covering every approach.

Inside was a display of wealth that would rival that of Imelda Marcos.

Money was lavished on Montclair jackets, a shoe collection worthy of a Saudi princess, and a watch collection fit for a Premier League dressing room.

The list goes on.

30 pairs of identical Armani jeans, Gucci labels, a collection of handbags that a Kardashian would be proud of.

This was how the cartel's profits were laundered, through spending sprees and rolls of cash handed across the shop counters in Harrods.

The definition of ill-gotten gains was hanging in wardrobes in his luxury mansion in Tamworth.

Cartel members know the risk of peddling drugs across international borders.

But when officers start rifling through their six-figure wardrobes, confiscating their luxury watches and handbag collections, it does hit a nerve.

The court's inventory of Bomber's lavish spending gave an inkling into just how far removed he'd become from the day-to-day drug trade.

He oversaw the delegation of smuggling routes of finance and of enforcement to trusted lieutenants.

The proceedings in Ipswich Crown Court didn't just mark the fall of Thomas Bomber Cavanagh's personal empire.

They also signal something far bigger.

Bomber's collapse marks the first true fracture in what had long looked like an impenetrable underworld machine.

The cartel's chief strategist, the man who kept its international supply lines running smoothly, had finally been taken down.

Seen as untouchable for years, his sentence for importing tens of millions of pounds of drugs was a major shot across the bow of the Kinahan cartel.