Drug gang is jailed after £100k seizure

The three were dealers involved in two separate operations that ran parallel to each other but were not directly linked.

Philip Reid had cannabis and cocaine valued at more than £4,000 when police stopped the 23-year-old on Oldbury Ringway during the early hours of November 3. He was heading to a meeting in West Bromwich with wraps of drugs ready for sale on Black Country streets.

He made a run for it with a rucksack packed with drugs when the officers said they intended to search the car but was caught after a short chase when he fell in the car park of the nearby Sainsbury's supermarket at 1am.

Reid hurled away bags holding drugs, weighing machines and a mobile phone as he fled but they were recovered by officers after his capture.

These included around £3,000 worth of skunk cannabis and 62 pre-prepared street deals of cocaine with a total value of £1,240, revealed Mr Charles Crinion, prosecuting.

Days earlier the Ford Focus driven by Reid had been seen near an address connected to another drug ring which initially led detectives to believe they belonged to the same gang.

This was not the case but he still appeared in the dock at Wolverhampton Crown Court alongside two key figures from the other racket.

Akhaim Giwa, aged 28, and 27-year-old Tyrell Meikle were the 'custodians' of a near £100,000 haul of heroin and cocaine found hidden in the garden and adjoining waste ground of the house where Giwa's girlfriend lived in St Silas Square, Lozells, the court heard.

Police swooped on the address on November 14, the day after Meikle was arrested by armed officers in Mills Street, Lozells. He was carrying a knife.

Cocaine and heroin valued at almost £9,000 was discovered in the garden with a further £85,000 stash of heroin – together with a cutting agent that would have bulked up the drug and boosted its worth by £60,000 – hidden on waste ground abutting the premises, disclosed Mr Crinion.

Giwa from Quinton Road, Harborne - freed on licence seven months earlier from a jail sentence for heroin dealing - gave himself up to police a week later.

Both he and father of two Meikle of Garretts Walk, Druids Heath pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply heroin and cocaine. They were jailed for six years seven months and six years respectively. Each is godfather to a child of the other.

Reid from Salisbury Road, Lozells admitted possession of cannabis and cocaine with intent to supply and was locked up for three years nine months by Judge Kristina Montgomery QC.