Drugs plotter fails in appeal bid
ADRUGS plotter who supplied cutting agents to dealers was rightly told he would serve an extra 18 months behind bars if he didn’t pay back at least part of his £1.2 million illgotten gains, a judge ruled.
Jamie Stephen Dale, 38, of Claymere Avenue, Norden, was jailed for 18 years in November 2011 after being found guilty of three counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs after a 10 week trial at Leeds Crown Court.
At the time police say anyone who used cocaine up to 2008 is likely to have snorted chemicals brought in by Dale.
Dental painkillers and potent anaesthetics from India and China were imported by Dale and two accomplices over three years.
They also brought in tonnes of paracetamol, and caffeine, often used for mixing with heroin.
It is believed they were used to cut drugs across the country with a street value of £3.5bn.
Dale used his ‘green’ fuel company Bioflo – on Buckley Road Industrial Estate – as the front for his operation.
He was caught after police put electronic tracking devices in some of the shipments and followed them across the country.
Dale was arrested after a raid on his home. He tried to flee across a landing in his underpants, carrying a carrier bag with £20,000 in cash.
Police later recovered his £18,000 diamondencrusted Frank Muller watch and other expensive jewellery.
Dale lived in a fully paid-up £200,000 house – despite declaring an income of just £15,000 in 2003/04, and none at all after that date.
The operation was hugely lucrative. According to investigators 80 per cent pure Columbian cocaine would fetch about £50,000 on the street. Bulked out with chemicals it could net drug dealers £280,000.
It was not until September 4 last year that a confiscation hearing was held at Leeds Crown Court.
A judge found that Dale made a whopping £1,235,689.60 from his crimes.
But, by then, his ‘available assets’ - including a property in Rochdale, a watch and a diamond ring - were valued at just £26,949.12.
Dale was ordered to pay that sum under the Proceeds of Crime Act or face an extra 18 months in jail.
But on Wednesday at London’s Appeal Court, Dale argued the prison sentence in default of pay- ment had been set too high.
Judge Mayo said the benefit and available assets figures had been agreed between Dale and prosecutors.
The cash ‘could easily’ have been raised and paid by Dale within six weeks of the confiscation order, he added.
Dismissing the appeal, he ruled that the Crown Court judge ‘set a default term which was proportionate in these circumstances’.