A high-rolling businesswoman caught with £1.5million of cocaine concealed within her car boot has been jailed for ten years.

Stephanie Nelson, 30, who owns Porsche Cosmetics and lived in a luxury house in Cheshire, was caught with the haul in the Dartford Tunnel.

Nelson posted dozens of pictures on Instagram showing her enjoying exotic holidays, staying in expensive hotels and posing on yachts around the globe.

As part of a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation, officers established it was not only beauty treatments funding her lifestyle.

On June 10 this year, Nelson was observed driving her Hyundai iX35 into the car park of The Yeoman pub in Bearsted, Kent, where she met John Markham, 53, from Enfield, who was waiting in a white van and handed over two black holdalls.

Nelson drove off and was stopped a short time later in the Dartford Tunnel.

During the initial inspection no drugs were found, but a thorough search revealed 15kg of high-purity cocaine in a magnetised purpose-built hide in the floor of the boot.

Nelson was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to supply cocaine, and Markham, who claimed to be unemployed but appeared to be living way beyond his means, was detained for the same offence later that day.

Markham was also jailed for ten years when they both appeared at Maidstone Crown Court and pleaded guilty.

Adam Warnock, NCA Branch Commander, said: “Drug trafficking was Nelson’s passport to a high-rolling lifestyle, but it was very high risk and now she in prison.

“We believe the drugs run we observed was her sixth one this year.

“Our work does not stop here though as we will seek to confiscate assets belonging to Nelson and Markham to ensure they no longer benefit from their criminality.

“The investigation into the wider drug trafficking network is also ongoing.

“The groups active in drug distribution are often involved in street violence, intimidation and exploitation.

“This is why we take this type of activity so seriously.

“W are determined to do all we can to disrupt it.”