Bristol gang jailed for £4.5 cocaine conspiracy in South West

A gang that supplied more than 130 kilos of cocaine valued at £4.5 million across the South West has been jailed for 56 years.

The four men were sentenced at Winchester Crown Court on 15 March for their roles in the conspiracy.

Their arrests in 2020 followed work as part of Operation Venetic.

This was the UK operation that followed the cracking of Encrochat, an encrypted messaging service used by organised crime groups.

Kai Williams, 38, from Coombe Dingle in Bristol was sentenced to 18 years after pleading guilty earlier this month to conspiracy to supply 130 kilos of cocaine.

He acted as a class A drugs broker for the crime syndicate, the court was told.

His black Mercedes - which had a lock knife hidden in the boot - and other luxury items including jewellery, designer clothing, trainers and £4,000 cash were seized as evidence to show the lifestyle he led.

Luther Takawira, 28, from Portishead and friends James Cox, 34, and Benjamin Fry, 34, both from Shirehampton in Bristol, were all convicted by a jury on 11 March of conspiracy to supply cocaine.

Takawira was sentenced to 15 years, Cox to 12 years and Fry to 11 years for their drug dealing activity.

Cox and Takawira were also convicted of transferring criminal property, namely hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash - Cox had £32,000 stored in a safe in house.

Det Insp Adrian Hawkins, who led the investigation, said that the OCG was dealing in "multi-kilo quantities" of cocaine which was then delivered to locations including Portsmouth, Trowbridge, Bristol and Bridgewater.

He added: "This was making the group hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund lifestyles that no doubt couldn't be more different to those of many of the users they supplied."

Teams from the the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit (SWROCU) spent months reviewing hundreds of thousands of messages to identify the roles and activities of the criminal network.

They helped decode and present the messages - which the criminals had thought were protected on the EncroChat messaging service - to the court.

These were combined with handwritten logs at Takawira and Cox's homes detailing cash and cocaine deliveries, to help secure the convictions.

Det Insp Hawkins added, "This group has caused untold harm to the communities across our region whilst they lived comfortably from the proceeds of those crimes.

"The sentences handed down reflect this, and act as a warning that we continue to use all our specialist capabilities to pursue those involved."

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