Police found concrete evidence of drug dealers’ bid to swindle

POLICE discovered a drug deal was not as it seemed when they opened a package purporting to contain a kilo of cocaine and found most of it was a block of concrete.
By The Newsroom
Published 22nd Mar 2012, 09:00 BST

Leeds Crown Court heard the suppliers involved in the sham had simply drilled a couple of holes in the block and filled those with cocaine ready for that to be tested at the handover by the purchasers.

Jordan Firth and another man were being watched when they met a trio from the Liverpool area for the handover on July 4 last year.

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Richard Wright, prosecuting, said they were first seen in two vehicles in the Pizza Hut car park at Junction 27, Birstall in West Yorkshire before, an hour later, they stopped at the Burger King restaurant car park at junction one of the Leeds Ring Road.

When officers moved in they seized £18,930 in cash from a carrier bag and a further £28,970 from inside the engine block of Firth’s vehicle and then discovered the package intended to deceive the two men into believing they were getting cocaine.

Firth, 19, of Wooler Avenue, Beeston, Leeds was sent to a young offender institution for seven years after he admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine while on bail for possessing class A drugs, dangerous driving and other motoring offences on May 10 last year.

The court heard at that time he was also subject to a community order for supplying drugs.

Sentencing him the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC said it was clear in the first half of last year Firth was “attempting to climb the ladder in the drug trafficking business”.