Ongoing commitment to tackle organised crime in Staffordshire

Four drug dealers have been jailed for a total of 34 years in recent weeks, demonstrating our ongoing commitment to proactively target serious and organised crime across Staffordshire.

Earlier this month, three drug dealers who were caught with an estimated £10 million worth of drugs were jailed for a collective 30 years.

Officers from our regional organised crime unit (ROCU) made the discovery after they spotted a meeting between two men on Allman Road, Sutton Coldfield, on 10 April this year.

These men were Adam Vorster, 41, of no fixed address, and Mohamoud Mahamoud, 29, of West Drayton, Greater London.

Mahamoud got out a white Peugeot Partner van and spoke to Vorster, who was next to a silver Honda CRV. Mahamoud then got a black holdall bag out the boot of the van, which looked heavy. He put it in the boot of the Honda.

Benjamin Holt, 43, of Horam, East Sussex, was sat in the driver’s seat of the Honda at the time.

ROCU officers then moved in and detained all three of them in the act. They found 21 kilo blocks of cocaine in the holdall bag Mahamoud had been carrying, believed to be worth a street value up to £2,100,000.

Three more holdall bags were found in the back of the van, along with two further bags, which contained 81 kilo blocks of cocaine, worth around £8,100,000.

The estimated wholesale value of the drugs is believed to be between £2,346,000 and £3,570,000, with a street value up to £10,200,000.

The amount of drugs seized suggests the trio were involved in one of the top-end cocaine supplies operating across the UK. Now, through proactive action, this network has been significantly disrupted and a vast amount of class A drugs taken off the streets.

Another man has been jailed for four and a half years after we seized around £15,000-worth of crack cocaine and heroin, thousands of pounds in cash and phones believed to be linked to dealing in Stoke-on-Trent.

Luis Ferreira, 38, from Newport, Wales, was sentenced at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court after changing his plea from not guilty to guilty of possession with intent to supply a class A drug (heroin), and possession with intent to supply a class A drug (cocaine).

Ferreira was arrested in May when officers from our major and organised crime proactive teams forced entry and searched a property in Etruria.

They found heroin and crack cocaine, around £8,600 in cash and two mobile phones, including a suspected main drug line believed to be used to co-ordinate drug deals.

We launched Operation Target in May last year and have been working hard to identify, disrupt and pursue criminals who plan, organise and commit serious criminal offences across the county, including drug supply, illegal firearms, knife crime, human trafficking and sexual exploitation.