Two men jailed for their part in a £60m ‘industrial scale’ drugs conspiracy
Two men involved in an “industrial scale” importation of drugs with a street value of more than £60 million have been jailed for a total of 35 years.
It follows a lengthy investigation by officers from Greater Manchester Police’s (GMP) Challenger team.
Both men had pleaded guilty to drugs and weapons offences.
At Minshull Street Crown Court on Thursday (December 2), 35-year-old Ashley Dissington was sentenced to 20 years for being knowingly concerned in the importation of heroin and cocaine, conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine and possession of a blade in a public place.
Co-conspirator Connor Jackson-Westwood, 25, was jailed for 15 years at an earlier sentencing hearing in October for being knowingly concerned in the importation of heroin and cocaine and possession of a prohibited weapon.
During the trial, the court heard how on October 1, 2020, a package from Belgium was intercepted by the UK Border Force. Once opened, the package was found to contain a total of 15kg of Class A drugs – 6kgs of cocaine and 9kgs of diamorphine – with an estimated street value of around £1.5 million.
The seized items were handed over to police and officers then made the decision to let the package continue to its intended destination at Wheatfield Industrial Estate in Royton, Oldham, with the contents removed and a decoy put in place of the drugs.
Five days later, surveillance officers saw Dissington arrive at the scene in his car, parking on a nearby street with Jackson-Westwood arriving by foot shortly after.
GMP said Jackson-Westwood was observed collecting the parcel before leaving the industrial estate and walking in the opposite direction of the parked car.
“Dissington then drove his vehicle away from the area in what prosecutor David James described as a ‘route clearly adopted as an anti-surveillance technique’,” it added.
Jackson-Westwood was picked up by Dissington at a ‘pre-arranged pick up point’ shortly after.
The two travelled to Royton Park before opening the parcel while still in the car, removing the delivery labels using a craft knife.
It was then that officers arrived and arrested the pair.
Following a search of Jackson-Westwood’s home address in Royton, a number of cellophane bags containing cocaine and digital weighing scales were found in his bedroom. A stun gun was also found in a kitchen cupboard, while goods including a £15,000 watch were also seized from the address.
While in custody, both defendants denied all knowledge of the drugs before later pleading guilty to their involvement.
GMP identified a further 16 deliveries consisting of 40 packages all being delivered from the same Belgium mail drop location to the Oldham industrial estate’s storage unit within a three-month period from June to October 2020, which totalled 578.5kgs.
Judge John Potter said that “on the reasonable interface” it was likely that each contained a similar amount, type and purity of drugs and would be worth a wholesale value of up to £19.5 million and a street value of up to £61.5 million. He described the importation of drugs to have been “on an industrial scale”.
Dissington’s sentence also incorporates separate drug and money laundering offences. During the course of their investigation, detectives from the Oldham Challenger team identified that Dissington had also been a user of the ‘EncroChat’ platform, which forms part of the National Crime Agency-led ‘Operation Venetic’ into organised crime.
He was further interviewed for these additional offences in June this year.
“Dissington was found to have been using the alias ‘Dizzierascal’ while messaging other organised crime groups members using encrypted mobile devices to prevent police from detecting their conversations,” said GMP.
“He was found to be involved in dealings of Class A drugs with a potential maximum street value of £725,000 and was responsible for the collection, storing and passing of money in excess of £100,000.”
Detective Sergeant Alex Brown, of GMP’s Oldham Challenger team, said the sentencing of the two men was “a fantastic result not only for the Operation Challenger team and ongoing Operation Venetic investigations, but also for local communities who are effected by the drug trade”.