£830k drugs and gun gang taken off streets
TWO men from Greater Manchester have been jailed as part of a gang of drug dealers.
The gang were locked up after guns and drugs worth £830,000 were found in a safe and a freezer on an industrial unit in Darwen, Lancashire.
Jay Thomas Carney, 24, from Salford, was jailed for two years and six months for possession of a shotgun without a certificate.
Ryan O’Donnell, 32, also from Salford, was jailed for just less than eight years for possession of a prohibited firearm, possession of a Class A drug, being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs and possession with intent to supply a Class B drug.
The gang as a whole was jailed for 27 years and four months.
An investigation was launched by
Lancashire Police after they seized two handguns with rounds of ammunition and a silencer and a pump action shotgun with shells when they raided the unit at Kay Street, Darwen, in October 2019.
A locked safe box containing £480,000 of cocaine with an 80 per cent purity and a freezer containing £353,000 of amphetamine was also discovered.
Nobody was inside the property at the time of the raid but CCTV footage showed Ben Snell and Damien Derbyshire entering and leaving the unit in the months prior to the warrant being executed.
Mercedes Citan and Citroen Berlingo vans used to drive to and from the unit were both seized.
Derbyshire and Snell were also linked to the drug supply conspiracy by paperwork and payments connected to the unit, as well as mobile phone evidence.
O’Donnell was later arrested at an address in Corinthian Avenue, Manchester, after his DNA was recovered from the trigger/guard of the handgun. Cocaine, cannabis and a ‘dealer debt list’ were also found here. Both O’Donnell and Carney pleaded guilty in court.
Carney was arrested on the same day at an address in Fairy Lane, Manchester, after his DNA was also recovered from the trigger/guard of the shotgun.
Derbyshire, 43, from Accrington, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A and Class B drugs and was jailed for six years.
Snell, 34, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class B drug, possessing prohibited firearms, possessing ammunition without a certificate and possessing shotgun without certificate. He was jailed for nine years.