Five members of a network which sold heroin and crack cocaine in Dover have become the latest drug dealers jailed following an operation by Kent Police.
The group were part of the so-called ‘B’ line, which made around 60 deals a day in the town before its members were among thirty-six people arrested in early-morning drugs warrants in February 2020.
It is estimated that the ‘B’ line supplied nearly five kilograms of heroin and crack cocaine, worth around £300,000, to drug users in Dover between June 2019 and February 2020.
KENT POLICE
Three members of the group’s hierarchy, as well as two street dealers, have now been jailed for their part in the conspiracy.
In 2019, officers from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate gained information that street dealers, aided by a 16-year-old girl, were selling heroin and crack cocaine through a phone line known as the ‘B’ line.
Officers carried out a warrant at a house in Folkestone Road on Thursday 23 January 2020 and seized a phone which contained videos of the group’s two main stockist packaging up drugs for street dealers to sell on.
They were arrested during warrants in the town on Tuesday 4 February along with a woman who helped run the drug line between November and December 2019.
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The defendants have since admitted conspiracy to supply class A drugs and at Canterbury Crown Court on Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 December and jailed for more than 20 years.
Detective Constable Alan Poulton of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate said: ‘This was an extremely thorough investigation during which our officers identified and arrested numerous members of this network.
‘Kent Police is determined to make the county a no-go area for drug dealing groups and I am pleased this long-running investigation has now seen more criminals brought to justice.’
A total of fifty-three suspected drug dealers have been arrested in Dover since February 2020 as part of the Kent Police operation. Thirty-nine have since been convicted of or admitted charges, with twenty-six now serving prison sentences.