A heartless former UN consultant from Swanley has been jailed, after joking he was selling overpriced drugs "to dying and starving Africans".

Sijbrandus Scheffer, 63 of West View Road, and 41-year-old Guido Bakker, from the Netherlands, received bribes worth 1million US dollars (roughly £650,000) to rig drugs contracts.

The favours were made in relation to the supply of life-saving drugs to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and came from a Danish pharmaceutical company called Missionpharma.

The pair hoped to make as much as 67 million US dollars (£44m) from the plot, Southwark Crown Court heard yesterday (September 23).

Scheffer was jailed for 15 months, whilst his accomplice got a year behind bars - although it is likely they will only serve half their time.

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Art Scheffer was jailed for 15 months

Their company, World Response Consulting, obtained contracts from the UN to help to combat HIV and Malaria in the war-ravaged African country.

The pair leaked crucial details to Missionpharma to "stack the deck" in favour of the company.

The men, both Dutch nationals, used London-based solicitor Patrick Orr to set up a firm to receive these corrupt payments.

They disguised their cash through a network of offshore companies and splashed out on properties in some of London's most exclusive districts, including Maida Vale and Hampstead.

Judge Michael Grieve, sentencing, said: "It is corruption in the context of a very large grant for the relief of disease in one of the most deprived countries on earth."

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Guido Bakker was jailed for a year

He added the two former humanitarian workers, who he described as "equal partners" were guilty of flagrant corruption.

He said: "Flagrance and dishonesty was the theme of the conduct of you both in committing these offences."

The judge added: "I do note your motivation and genuine desire to lend your help to people in the world in desperate need of it.

"I think you saw this as an opportunity to get something back for yourselves by way of a payout - a deserved pension - and you took it.

"It involved blatant dishonesty."

The court heard the two men were driven by financial greed, and hid their links to Missionpharma as they promoted the company to the UN.

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Scheffer wrote that "it would be a sort of corporate Armageddon" if the truth came out.

He added that payments for the contracts needed to be "unseeable by outside eyes".

The UN launched an investigation into the men, and how the contracts were awarded, in 2007. They were arrested the following year.

Scheffer was found guilty of accepting or obtaining corrupt payments, fraudulent trading and transferring the proceeds of crime.

Bakker pleaded guilty to accepting or obtaining corrupt payments.

Orr, 48, was earlier found guilty of being concerned with money laundering and given a two year jail sentence suspended for 12 months.