A drugs gang who supplied cocaine from Liverpool to people across Wales have been given jail sentences totalling nearly 50 years.
Gang members ferried more than £1m worth of cocaine from Liverpool to South West Wales but were caught in a police undercover operation code-named “Pigeon”.
Robin Rouch, prosecuting, said police work involved detectives installing a “covert probe” (a listening device) inside 49-year-old businessman James Bolton’s Station Automotives firm in Milford Haven.
He said the police also logged mobile phone traffic, car movements and money transfers, identifying around 40 drug and cash runs to South West Wales, although one of the gang confessed to at least 60 trips to Wales.
The operation centred on the drug dealing of what Dyfed Powys Police called two linked organised crime gangs in Pembrokeshire , the first headed by Bolton, of Dunromin, Kiln Road, Johnston, Haverfordwest, operating in the Johnston/Haverfordwest area and the second headed by Leigh John Salter, 37, of Steynton Road, Steynton, Milford Haven, operating in the Milford Haven area.
Swansea Crown Court heard how Bolton and Salter sourced “significant quantities” of cocaine from a Liverpool crime gang headed by Adam John Idris 33, of Grovedale Road, Liverpool, and arranged its onward distribution at Pembrokeshire via what police called “a criminal network of associates”.
Later in the investigation it was found that Salter also sourced cocaine from a person based in Swansea .
The operation captured evidence of the gang’s operations between October 2012 and April 2015 when the arrests were made.
Paul Thomas QC, sentencing on Friday, gave Idris 12 years for conspiracy to supply cocaine telling him: “You were the kingpin of the drugs operation in South West Wales.”
Bolton got nine and a half years for conspiracy to supply cocaine and his former partner Siobhan Jackson, 38, of the same address, got five years and four months for the same offence.
Also sentenced for conspiring to supply cocaine were Adam Mark Woodhouse, 34, of Weaver Close, Alsager, Stoke on Trent, who got six years and eight months for his “significant role” in the drugs operation; Andrew John Davies, 54, of Hill Street, Haverfordwest, who was sentenced to four years and four months; and David Parker, 41, of Skomer Drive, Milford Haven who was sentenced to 16 months, suspended for two years with 250 hours of unpaid work.
The following were sentenced for money laundering as part of the drugs operation: Richard Conroy, 48, of Cherry Tree Close, Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, who was given a community order plus 200 hours unpaid work; human resources worker Danielle Maloney, 35, of Dovedale Road, Liverpool, who was sentenced to 16 months suspended for 12 months plus a 60 Day Rehabilitation Activity Order and 250 hours unpaid work; and ex-bank worker John Foster, 34, of Tiverton Street, Liverpool, who was jailed for two and a half years.
Judge Thomas told the defendants: “Cocaine is referred to as a leisure or recreational drug but that hides an ugly truth, that it can and does destroy lives and families.”
Detective Chief Inspector Huw Davies, from Dyfed Powys Police, said: “The investigation disclosed this crime group were responsible for the trafficking of cocaine into the Pembrokeshire area.
“These were significant amounts of cocaine to be available within the small communities of Pembrokeshire and the investigation and enforcement is likely to have had a significant impact.”
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