THE cross Pennine supply of drugs between the North East and North West has again been brought into focus after the latest gang of dealers were brought to justice.
Cleveland Police’s long-running Operation Spoonbill has resulted in dozens of gang members in both regions being taken off the streets.
The connection between Teesside’s Craig Costello and Liverpool kingpin, Lance Kennedy, dates back more than a decade with them both being jailed in 2012 for money laundering when another drugs gang was brought down.
Kennedy and Costello were lower down the pecking order when Darlington man Paul Brett was at the head of a well organised empire that tried to flood the area with more than £1m of cocaine.
The gang was disrupted after an 18-month undercover operation – the biggest in Durham Police history – culminated in raids in 2011.
Brett was jailed along with five others from Darlington, Teesside and Merseyside, including Kennedy and Costello.
Kennedy hit the headlines in earlier this year when he was jailed for jailed for 18 years and four months for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.
The Scouse drug lord used helicopters to shop the cocaine into the country and booked holiday homes – one belonging to actor Miriam Margolyes - under the flight path to safely offload his precious cargo.
At the height of the conspiracy detectives discovered a consignment of 60kg heroin and 43kg cocaine was delivered to the south of England via helicopter from Belgium, before being dispersed across the country.
The fall-out from the operation also led to Teesside drug lord Jonathan Moorby who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in in 2014 for supplying cocaine and amphetamine. He fled the country before the trial and was convicted and sentenced in his absence.
The drugs baron continued to run his lucrative cocaine business while on the run in Thailand had another 14 years added to his sentence earlier this year.
Another gang of drug dealers face lengthy prison sentences last month when they appeared at Teesside Crown Court.
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