A Swansea Valley drug dealer was found with a large stash of high purity cocaine which could have been worth up to £1m.
Police found kilo blocks of the Class A drug when they raided houses owned by Jeffrey Davies as part of an investigation which had included an extensive surveillance operation. Police also recovered £32,000 in cash - though the dealer claimed much of that money were profits from a legitimate bar and grill business.
Swansea Crown Court heard Davies has previously served a 15 year sentence for drug dealing, and sending the 53-year-old back to prison a judge told him it was clear from the quantity of high purity cocaine which police recovered that he was "well connected" in the drugs world.
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Gerogia Donohue, prosecuting said that on the afternoon of September 6 last year police simultaneously executed two search warrants at properties in Ystalyfera belonging to Davies - his home address, and a nearby house which was undergoing extensive renovations and building work. She said at Davies' home on Varteg Road officers found "a large quantity" of cocaine together with £32,445 in cash and 7,550 in pesos. Inside a locked blue shipping container outside the property on Zoar Street which was being renovated police found "numerous kilo blocks" of high purity cocaine as well as a quantity of the mixing agent benzocaine.
The court hard the total weight of the cocaine seized by police was more than 13kg with a wholesale value of £416,000 and a street value considerably in excess of that. South Wales Police estimate the cocaine could have been worth up to £1m when packaged into individual deals and sold on the streets. Though the defendant had provided the key to the shipping container padlock, he refused to provide the PIN for his phone.
In his subsequent interview Davies said £21,000 of the cash seized by police were profits from the business Bar 98.
Jeffrey Davies, of Varteg Road, Ystalyfera, Swansea Valley, had previously pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply and to possession of criminal property - namely money - when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has six previous convictions for nine offences. In 2004 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs, and the following year was sentenced to another eight years consecutive for a further charge of being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs - this second sentence was reduced to five years on appeal making an effective overall sentence of 15 years. In 2013 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for possession of amphetamine with intent to supply.
Andrew Taylor, for Davies, said his client had effectively been operating a "safehouse" for the drugs, and said the defendant had not provided his phone PIN because he was "fearful of what others would do" if he were to give information to the police.
Judge Paul Hobson said drugs were plainly a lucrative business but also a dangerous one - dangerous for the community and dangerous to the induvial user. He said he was not prepared to sentence on the basis that Davies was operating a safe house, and he said the defendant was a drug dealer who - given the large quantity of high purity cocaine he had - was clearly "well connected" in the drug world. The judge said he had read a letter from the defendant's son in which he described the impact that his dad serving custodial sentences had had when he was younger, and said he was mindful of the impact of that custody would have on others - but he said that impact was a direct result of the defendant's decision to involve himself in drug dealing.
With a one-third discount for his guilty plea to the drug trafficking offence Davies was sentenced to 12 years in prison and with a one quarter discount for the plea to money laundering was sentenced to 12 months in prison, the sentences to run concurrently.
South Wales Police believe Davies was part of an organised crime group, and they estimate the drugs seized in the operation had a street value in excess of £1m. Speaking after the sentencing detective inspector Marc Gardener said: "Organised crime has no place within our communities. This result highlights how relentless we will continue to be in our efforts to identify and bring offenders to justice."
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