Drug dealers who hid almost £1m of cannabis in a van full of lettuce have been jailed.
Officers from the Serious and Organised Crime (SOCO) unit discovered drugs worth more than £700,000 concealled in a van filled with more than 1,000 lettuces, Manchester Crown Court court heard
Eneo Zace and Patrick Duffy, from Walkden, Salford, were also found to be vacuum packing the cannabis in one kilogram packages and storing them in large black holdalls, which were kept in a garage in Walkden.
The packages were labelled with names such as AK-47 and Critical Widow.
Duffy, of Lentworth Driver, and Zace, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to supplying cannabis. Zace was sentenced to three years and four months in prison while Duffy was jailed for four years and eight months earlier this week.
Zace was caught carrying one of the holdalls to a VW Passat on December 17 last year and officers then searched the vehicle. SOCO found and seized a holdall filled with around 15 kgs of vacuum packed cannabis and a set of keys.
The keys were used to open the garage in Walkden, which officers entered and discovered a further 71kg of vacuum packed cannabis, a vacuum packing machine and plastic bags.
The total street value of the drugs seized by officers is estimated to be around £737,000.
Det con Mark Ellis, of the Serious and Organised Crime Group, said: “As the judge remarked at the sentencing, Duffy and Zace were drug dealers on a ‘professional and commercial scale’.
“The sheer volumes of cannabis, the professional packing equipment and the way they transported the drugs concealed underneath the vegetables in the back of a van demonstrates that these men were experienced drug dealers who had gone to great lengths to evade capture.
“Thankfully our officers are determined to ensure drug dealers such as this pair pay the price for their criminality, and with the sentences they have received today they have done exactly that.
“I would like to point out at this point that though our officers work incredibly hard to tackle drug dealing in our city, our communities also play a key role in the fight against criminality.”
