A MAN accused of setting up bogus businesses and renting offices to hide the delivery of huge amounts of heroin from Spain and the Netherlands has been jailed.

Gang members were caught after the Border Force intercepted a parcel in London addressed to a home at Northop Hall in Flintshire and the National Crime Agency launched an investigation.

Caernarfon crown court heard Stephen Hunt, 60, of Great Oxendon, Market Harborough, played a key role in a conspiracy to import drugs, setting up a bogus linen firm and seeking a job with the NCA during the offending.

He was jailed for ten years and nine months.

Dylon Sanger, 34, of Bailey Avenue, Ellesmere Port, accused of recruiting people in Britain to receive drugs, was jailed for nine years. His lawyer said Sanger left school without qualifications and took to drugs in his teens.

Darren Barrett, 41, who was of Village Road, Northop Hall, was sentenced to five years and three months. His counsel said he played “no more than a letterbox in this” and had driven to a Mold pub to hand a package to Tyrone Holbrook-Harris, 27, of Hillside Crescent, Buckley, who was jailed for six years.

Judge Nicola Saffman said between January and May last year there had been a “sophisticated and complex” plot to import heroin involving an organised crime group. Between 18 and 20kgs of drugs worth up to £900,000 had been imported, but 90kgs-a-week were planned.

“Were it not for the Border Force and police thorough investigation, I have no doubt that would have been a successful operation. But I am not sentencing you for that,” the judge remarked to the defendants, who admitted involvement in a drugs plot.

The NCA said Hunt liaised with contacts abroad, rented office space via a front company pretending to deal in household linen and worked with accomplices to have consignments of heroin delivered by fast parcel.

When Sanger was arrested in August last year officers found around £9,000 hidden behind his car’s dashboard and £1,300 in his house.

On May 5 last year National Crime Agency officers watched Holbrook-Harris receive a parcel from Barrett which had been delivered to Barrett’s home by courier.

The men were arrested in a pub car park at Mold with the assistance of North Wales Police. The parcel contained 9.45 kilos of heroin, had a purity of 44% and a street value of £475,000.

The delivery was one of at least six the OCG had arranged with at least 18 kilos of class A drugs coming into the UK between January and May 2020 with a total value of £900,000.

Piers Phillips, NCA operations manager, said: “These men were central to the violence and exploitation that UK crime groups deal in when it comes to supplying heroin through County Lines.

“Class A drugs cause misery and bring chaos to our communities.”

“We’re pleased to have taken this OCG out of action and we’ll continue to do our utmost to protect the public from this threat.”