A 36-year-old man has been jailed for thirteen years after being found guilty of supplying drugs and money laundering charges.
Daljinder Bassi of Wolverhampton was arrested in October last year with three-kilo heroin in his car after he was seen acting suspiciously in Birmingham earlier that day, the prosecutor told the court.
A subsequent search of his house threw up 22-kilo heroin, cocaine worth, approximately 2.5 million British Pounds ($4.4 million) and various mixing agents.
Police also found £737,000 ($1.3 million) hidden in the walls of his house and could only be accessed using a pulley system later discovered at his house. Investigators also discovered a hydraulic press that was used to pack drugs into small blocks.
The crown prosecutor told the court Bassi was using his house as a base to cut, package and store large quantities of class A drugs before distribution to suppliers in West Midlands.
Bassi pleaded guilty to three counts of possession with intent to supply class A drugs at a previous hearing, reported.
The court heard he was previously jailed for ten years in 2009 for two convictions over conspiracy to supply drugs and possession of illegal firearms.
Defence consul Balbir Singh argued that Bassi was a smaller player than being alleged by the prosecution and was further down the supply chain, the reported.
He had stayed out of trouble for four years following his release from prison but had started using drugs again after the breakdown of a relationship, which led to him getting into debt and dealing, said Mr Singh.
But the judge concluded the high purity of the drugs, a huge quantity of cash and other evidence found during searches indicated Bassi had a leading role in the operation.
Matt McMillan from the Metropolitan Police which led the investigation jointly with National Crime Agency, said Bassi was a major distributor of class A drugs in the West Midlands.
"By shutting down his illegal enterprise, not only have we have eliminated a key link in the chain between high-end traffickers and street-level dealers, but a huge amount of cash has been removed from the criminal economy”, he said after the sentencing.
