Drug dealers cleared of gun charge but face jail over £70m plot
Massive cocaine operation was run from rural farm stables
JURORS have cleared two self-confessed drug dealers of having a gun in a £70m cocaine operation.
But Jason Stanley, 20, and Lee Matthews, 36, still face jail after admitting being part of the drugs ring that exported the class A substance across Britain.
Both men were on trial at Portsmouth Crown Court for three weeks before being cleared of having the handgun, silencer or 50 rounds of ammunition found at a secure unit at Clamp Farm Stables in a police raid on October 2 last year.
Police found £6.6m worth of cocaine in the raid and during subsequent arrests making it the ‘largest cocaine seizure seen by Hampshire Constabulary’, the force said.
Jurors were told the conspiracy was worth £70m a year, with £1.5m worth of wholesale value cocaine distributed each week.
The raid took place in Newtown, west of Denmead, after months of surveillance following couriers and alleged members of the gang.
James Bakes, 41, of Aldermoor Road, Waterlooville, was today cleared of conspiring to supply cocaine.
He was not charged in relation to the weapon.
Robert Hey, 41, of Upper Arundel Street in Landport, Portsmouth, has already admitted conspiring to supply cocaine, and being concerned in the supply of class B drugs.
Matthews, of Field Way in Denmead, and Stanley, 20, of Passingham Walk in Cowplain, both previously admitted conspiring to supply cocaine between October 1 in 2018 to October 3 in 2019, and amphetamine, a class B drug.
A caravan in the unit was the ‘main workshop’ to prepare the drugs and had been leased by drugs ‘warehouse manager’ Matthews, who was assisted by Stanley in the illicit operation, prosecutor Mark Ruffell said.
Jurors were told courier Robert Hey made 63 runs distributing cocaine in a modified blue Mercedes Vito van fitted with a secret compartment before it was seized by Portsmouth City Council for parking on double yellow lines on January 31.
It was one of several ‘slipups,’ Mr Ruffell said the conspirators had made.
He added: ‘The cocaine was distributed nationally and at import grade and was being distributed from the Portsmouth and Waterlooville area to London, Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, Plymouth, the West Midlands, Norwich and Essex.’
Hey, Matthews and Stanley are due to be sentenced in the new year.
The cocaine was distributed nationally from the Portsmouth area... Prosecutor Mark Ruffell