The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Kitchen fitter jailed for £500k drugs operation
Abusinessman was jailed for five years yesterday after a police surveillance operation recovered drugs worth more than £500,000 on the streets.
A judge told Serafin Gaik, 31, that illicit drugs wreck lives and blight communities as she jailed him for his role in the cannabis supply operation.
Lady Poole jailed Gaik’s co-accused Logan MacLeod for 27 months and Pawel Chmielewski for two years when the trio appeared for sentencing at the High Court in Edinburgh.
The judge told them: “In 2020 and 2021 the police carried out an investigation into the supply of drugs in Inverness.”
During the anti-drugs operation, codenamed Operation Bearskin, more than 30 kilos of class B cannabis was recovered.
Gaik, who had a kitchen and bathroom fitting business and traded in cars, had denied being concerned in the supply of the drug but was found guilty of committing the offence between August 26 in 2020 and August 19 the following year after a trial.
Chmielewski, 34, of St Fergus Drive, Inverness, admitted that he was concerned in the supply of
cannabis on January 14 2021 at a layby off the A9 road at Moy, south of the Highland city, and elsewhere.
MacLeod, 21, of Suilven Way, Inverness, admitted that he was concerned in the supply of the class B drug at addresses in Inverness between November 24 2020 and January 22 2021.
During the anti-drug trafficking operation officers took part in months-long surveillance of potential targets.
Lorry driver Chmielewski was stopped by police and found to have 10kg of herbal cannabis in vacuum bags in the cab of his HGV. He told officers: “What can I say, I just transport it?”
Gaik was discovered to be involved in facilitating and directing others in the drug supply operation. Cash was recovered under the seat of a vehicle linked to him and he went to a car park where MacLeod also attended before the latter was stopped with two kilos of cannabis in a bag.
During the operation, police forced open a locked shed at an address in Inverness and were met with “an overwhelming smell of cannabis”.
Boxes, bags and a suitcase containing quantities of the drug were found, along with “tick lists” recording drug transactions.
High-purity cocaine worth nearly £30,000 was also discovered during searches.
Lady Poole told the trio that they had been convicted of a serious offence and drugs were a source of misery.
The court heard that Gaik, formerly of Academy Street, Inverness, continued to maintain his innocence.
Defence counsel Frances Connor, for Gaik, said of the first offender: “He is a family man with a strong work ethic.”
Lorenzo Alonzi, counsel for MacLeod, said he had moved away from using the drug and had the prospect of employment as he urged the court to deal with him through a non-custodial sentence.