Members of a large-scale drugs gang have been ordered to pay tens of thousands of pounds from their criminal gains to the state.
Four members of a drugs ring which plotted to flood Teesside’s streets with Class A narcotics must hand over more than £55,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The money will come from hundreds of thousands of pounds they made from their crimes.
The six men - given prison sentences totalling almost 50 years - came back to Teesside Crown Court under legislation designed to strip criminals of ill-gotten gains.
They were jailed in September last year after police found cocaine worth up to £664,000 being poured down the drain at a Teesside home.
The conspirators brought high-purity cocaine into the region from the North-west.
One of the ringleaders, Brian Clarke, 41, who is in prison for 12 years and four months, made £119,578 from crime.
He has been ordered to pay £34,851 - the amount he has available - in six months, or serve another 15 months in prison.
The court heard previously how Clarke, of Grosmont Road, Eston, was “at the heart” of the cocaine conspiracy and oversaw it from his motorbike.
Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, branded Clarke a “professional criminal... prepared to get others to carry out your dirty work”.
Clarke was jailed not only for conspiring to deal drugs, but also to attack a man with a bar and a bat and take a loaded semi-automatic pistol to the his home.
“Link man” Hesam Zaboli, 30, of Cambridge Square, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough, made £43,003 from his criminal activity.
The one-time convicted blackmailer - who is serving 11 years - was ordered to pay £4,537.
He and car dealer Paul Burke, 29, of Passfield Crescent, South Bank, were leading players in the cocaine network.
They organised for 83%-pure, importation-level cocaine to be shipped into Teesside and supplied to Clarke for onward distribution.
Burke made £79,409 from crime and was ordered to pay £13,006. He is serving eight years.
Burke had also admitted conspiring to supply heroin in an enterprise smashed in a £75,000 drugs bust at a train station.
User-turned-purchaser Mark Osborne, 42, formerly of Oxford Road, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough, had been given a five-year sentence. The court heard he had a criminal “benefit” of £44,001, of which he was ordered to pay £2,805.
Two more members of the cocaine gang - caught as they tried to wash drugs with a street value of about £664,000 down a sink - were also given confiscation orders. They were unpacking a kilo of cocaine with a wholesale value of £40,000 to £50,000 at a house on Achilles Close, South Bank when police forced their way in on October 17, 2012.
Stephen Jones, 35, of Bevanlee Road, South Bank, and Spencer Brockley, 39, of Slack Road, Blackley, Manchester, each made £40,928 from crime. Neither had any assets and they were both ordered to pay a nominal sum of £1.
They were jailed for five years each last year.
In every case, the dealers have been ordered to pay a fraction of their total criminal benefit, but the rest will still hang over their heads. The authorities can bring them back to court later to claim more of the money if they learn that the defendants have come into money or assets.
Detective Inspector Paul Colling said after the men were sentenced: “To these criminals, drug dealing is easy money. And one of the worst things for me is you see young kids looking up to these people.
“They see them as role models. They see them driving flash cars and having a lot of money and think that dealing drugs is a way to fund a nice lifestyle.”
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