Investigation brings down crime group flooding town with £100k-worth of class A drugs

Members of an organised crime group (OCG) that flooded Stafford with around £100,000-worth of class A drugs have been convicted, thanks to work by neighbourhood officers.

Five men were found guilty on Tuesday June 4 of conspiring to supply heroin and crack cocaine following a six-week trial at Stafford Crown Court, marking the conclusion of a successful and in-depth investigation into street level dealing in the town between January 2017 and March 2018.

The investigation was led by officers from the Stafford local policing team (LPT).

Gladstone Facey, 56, from Manchester, and Londoners Darnell McCollins, 23, Orlando Grace, 23, Nashwaan Ali, 24, and 48-year-old Everton Nugent, from Derrington, near Stafford, will be sentenced on Monday 2 September, alongside a 61-year-old woman, also from Stafford, after she pleaded guilty to allowing her premises to be used for supplying class A drugs at an earlier hearing.

Two other men were sentenced to three years and nine months and two years and three months respectively in 2022 after admitting their part in the operation.

In February 2017, Nugent was identified as being in control of a mobile phone, or ‘main drugs line’, used to sell crack cocaine and heroin in Stafford after he and Facey were searched by officers on Moorfields in the town.

Phone analysis carried out throughout the investigation showed this number to be operating the ‘Sleepy’ drugs line alongside mobiles linked to Grace and other gang members.

On 11 July 2017, a man was arrested on Newport Road, Stafford, after officers found heroin during a stop-and-search. We then visited an address in the town, where he was living at the time, and found £875 cash, cocaine and phones linking the homeowner to Nugent and drug supply.

Officers searched Nugent’s home in Derrington the next day and seized phones, cannabis, crack cocaine, heroin and digital scales that were later linked to one of the two men already sentenced following meticulous work by our forensic experts.

Three months later, he and McCollins were arrested after neighbourhood officers witnessed a drugs exchange on Westway in Stafford. The pair rode off on bikes and were found a short time later near the front door of the address previously linked to Nugent.

When we searched them we found cannabis and phones containing texts linked to drug dealing and the ‘Sleepy’ line.

Then, in July 2018, a man was arrested after being seen on the stairwell of Pennycroft flats in Stafford, taking cash from known drug users.

Ali was identified as being involved thanks to work by our forensic analyst and was arrested in London.

Sergeant Thomas Fotherby, from Stafford LPT, led the investigation. He said: “This is a welcome end to what was a large-scale conspiracy to supply vast quantities of crack cocaine and heroin across Stafford.

“Nugent was top of the chain, directing the supply and sale of harmful substances on the streets of our town. This result is the culmination of seven years’ hard work by local officers.

“The work of our police analyst in this case was described by the judge as ‘one of the most remarkable forensic feats’ they had ‘ever seen’. I am exceptionally proud of every police officer and member of staff involved in bringing this group to justice.”

This follows our ongoing commitment to tackling serious and organised crime and protecting those who are at risk of exploitation through Operation Target.

Work is continuing to proactively target the groups responsible for these crimes, including county lines, drug distribution, illegal firearms and sexual exploitation.

To read more about the initiative, visit: https://www.staffordshire.police.uk/news/staffordshire/news/2023/may/major-operation-to-target-serious-organised-crime-launched/

Local policing continues to be at the heart of our commitment to disrupting crime and protecting the people of Staffordshire. Read more, here: https://www.staffordshire.police.uk/news/staffordshire/news/2022/january/staffordshire-police-confirms-new-local-policing-model/