Members of a Liverpool organised crime group were caught making a delivery to a local heroin dealer in Swansea thanks to a covert police operation, a court has heard.
When officers swooped on a pub they found half-a-kilo of the Class A drug worth around £49,000 which had just been delivered to contacts in the Welsh city. Sending five people to prison for their part in a trafficking conspiracy the judge described the trade in heroin as "evil" and said it destroyed communities and brought misery to users.
Ian Wright, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that in the summer of 2022 police in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot launched an investigation into a county lines drug operation after recovering a phone from a user which had been receiving messages from a contact known as "Flakey". Those inquires led officers to uncovering two Liverpudlian drug dealers operating in Swansea - Ryan Dougherty, aged 43, and 40-year-old Neil Cook - who where were using a number of AirBnB rental properties in the city. The prosecutor said it emerged that the Flakey drugs line was sending out bulk text messages offering heroin to some 85 users.
