Former head of Helsinki’s anti-drugs police Jari Aarnio has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for smuggling drugs into Finland.

Jari Aarnio, 59, was found to have helped a gang to import nearly 1,764lb of hashish from the Netherlands and sell it in Finland between 2011 and 2012.

He was found guilty of five drug crimes and 17 other offences.

These included trying to frame an innocent man for being in charge of the drug ring.

Image source MTV.fi

An accomplice of Jari Aarnio, described as a top local criminal, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He spent 30 years in the anti-drugs force and was arrested in 2013.

Jari Aarnio denied all the charges against him, claiming his actions were all legal and undertaken in a policing capacity.

According to his legal team, Jari Aarnio plans to appeal the district court’s sentence in the Helsinki Court of Appeal.

In a separate case in September, Jari Aarnio was sentenced to three years in jail for fraud.

Crime rates are relatively low in Finland compared with most other European countries.

Finland ranks as the second least-corrupt country, after Denmark, in the global index compiled by Transparency International.