Five criminals from the Greater Manchester area have been jailed for their roles in a ‘brazen’ £1 million drugs plot orchestrated by a prisoner in his jail cell.
Involving a total of 18 men and women, the conspiracy was masterminded by serving prisoner Patrick White who used illegally held mobile phones.
He directed a band of trusted lieutenants, dealers and couriers from his jail cell in Cheshire.
White, 25, and originally from Manchester, used smuggled mobile phones to direct the transportation of illegal substances from the Manchester and Liverpool areas into Cumbria by road and rail.
However, police smashed the supply ring, which ran between April and September last year, and brought the perpetrators to justice.
Officers intercepted couriers as they attempted to flood the streets of Carlisle and other Cumbrian towns with class A drugs, along with cannabis and methcathinone (Mcat).
After several drug seizures, crucial and damning telephone evidence was gathered and the criminal gang members were rounded up.
They included 30-year-old Marple man Mark Bostock, of Heather Way, who held a senior position and fed vast amounts of cocaine into the operation.
White’s partner, 26-year-old Amanda Ashley, of Douthwaite Drive, Romiley, carried out instructions for White. She topped up mobile phones, passed on money and was said, on one occasion, to have moved drugs.
Steven Jones, 37, of Hyde Road, Woodley, was described as a ‘lieutenant’ in White’s enterprise who played a leading role in the crime. Jones was said to have been responsible for the warehousing and adulteration of cocaine, along with onward supply.
Also involved in the plot was courier Nathaniel Chebouli, 25, of Mottram Road, Stalybridge.
Chebouli was caught red-handed at Carlisle railway station last July by police who found 1.7kg of high purity cocaine in his rucksack.
White, Bostock, Ashley, Jones and Chebouli admitted their roles in the plot and were sentenced at Carlisle Crown Court on Friday.
Judge Barbara Forrester handed down sentences totalling more than 100 years to 16 of the conspirators - almost a dozen of whom were based in Cumbria.
White, who hails from the Manchester area, was jailed for 13 years.
Bostock was sent to prison for 10 years and eight months; Ashley for seven years; Jones for six years and eight months; and Chebouli for six-and-a-half years.
“It was clearly being run on a commercial basis,” Judge Forrester said of the conspiracy. “When one defendant was arrested they were replaced with another to ensure the supply chain was not broken.
“The extent, scale and execution can only be described as brazen and relentless.”
