Men caught during £10m cocaine deal jailed

Three men caught by police midway through an exchange of £10m worth of cocaine have been jailed.

Adam Vorster, Mohamoud Mahamoud and Benjamin Holt, were likely involved in "one of the top-end cocaine supplies operating across the UK", police said.

The men were apprehended when they met on Allman Road in Sutton Coldfield, on 10 April this year.

All three were jailed on Friday at Birmingham Crown Court after admitting conspiracy to supply a Class A drug.

Holt, 43, from Horam, East Sussex, was jailed for 13 years and two months, Vorster, 41, of no fixed address, was given a sentence of nine years and three months, and Mahamoud, 29, of West Drayton, Greater London, was jailed for seven years and six months.

Vorster was seen next to a car with Holt in the driver's seat, when Mahamoud got out of a van and came over to speak to him, Staffordshire Police said.

Mahamoud then got a black holdall bag out the boot of the van and put it in the boot of the car.

Officers from the force's regional crime unit then swooped and detained all three of them during the transaction.

They found 21kg blocks of cocaine in the holdall bag Mahamoud had been carrying, believed to have a street value of up to £2.1m.

Three more holdall bags were found in the van, along with two further bags, which contained 81kg blocks of cocaine, worth about £8.1m.

The estimated wholesale value of the drugs was believed to be between £2.3m and £3.5m, with a street value up to £10.2m, the force added.

Through "proactive action", the drug network the men were involved in has been significantly disrupted and a vast amount of Class A drugs taken off the streets, the force said.

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