Drug couriers jailed for transporting £3m in cocaine

Four men who transported £3m of cocaine around England have been jailed.

They transported drugs between London, the South West and the East Midlands, police said.

Pavel Purkin, 34, from Bognor Regis, Mehmet Sanci, 37, from Swindon; Corneliu Preda, 37 from Saltford and Garfield Prehay, 36, from Wembley, were all convicted of acting as couriers.

They were sentenced on 8 February after an investigation by the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit (SWROCU).

The trial at Bristol Crown Court was told Purkin passed 55kg of cocaine worth nearly £2m to Bath-based Romaine Hyman, who was jailed for 26 years in February 2022.

Purkin has been sentenced to 15 years, the highest sentence among the gang members.

Sanci transported at least 5kg cocaine and collected £418,000 in drugs money from Hyman to take to London over two trips.

Secret footage filmed by SWROCU showed Sanci meeting Hyman in Bath in April 2020 to collect three bags containing £348,540, the balance owed for 10kg of cocaine delivered by Purkin earlier the same month.

He also supplied cocaine himself in Swindon and was sentenced to nine years.

Detectives said the group were were "highly-organised criminals" who had been "causing massive harm in our communities".

SWROCU was heavily involved in the investigation, part of Operation Venetic.

The operation targeted encrypted communication platform EncroChat, widely used among organised crime networks.

Preda, 37, of Bath, a regular driver for Hyman, was jailed for 10 years.

On one occasion he drove and helped to collect £540,000 cash from a house in Bath before meeting Purkin and collecting 7kg of cocaine. Detectives said 4kg of the drugs were for Hyman, and 3kg for Sanci.

Prehay, 36, of Wembley, transported seven blocks of cocaine, each weighing 1kg, from London to Bath on 29 March 2020.

On that day, Hyman was arrested after stashing his drugs in a flat, with Purkin arrested as he waited in his car outside.

Less than an hour later, Prehay was arrested on the M4 near Swindon on his way back to London.

He was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

SWROCU said eight other members of the drug dealing network had already been sentenced and in total more than 120 years' worth of jail time has now been handed down.

Det Ch Insp Adam Smith said "many key players" had pleaded guilty to the charges against them due to the strength of evidence that had been gathered.

"These were highly organised criminals causing massive harm in our communities," he said.

"The tireless work of our investigation team, working closely with colleagues in the CPS, secured their convictions and has ensured they're brought to justice," he added.

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