Yardie is jailed for 13 years

A Mr Big of the Black Country drug dealing world who built a £1 million empire on the back of heroin and cocaine was beginning a 13-year jail term today.

Christopher Reid, known as Yardie, could now be stripped of his assets and is also facing deportation to his native Jamaica when he is released from prison.

Click here to see more pictures of Reid and his gang.

Reid, aged 34, roared around the region in a bright yellow Porsche with a personalised number plate reading Y9 RDY. He bought eight houses around Wolverhampton and Walsall, despite only declaring an annual income of around £10,000 from what he said was a car valet business.

In reality he and Stephen Hopson, 20, of Willenhall Road, Wolverhampton, and Silford Taylor, 23, of Kenilworth Crescent, Parkfields, Wolverhampton, were drug dealers operating in the Deansfield and East Park areas of the city.

Reid was sentenced yesterday at Wolverhampton Crown Court along with Hopson, described as a "lance corporal in the operation".

Hopson was given a six-year sentence while Taylor was given 12 months, suspended for two years. A major operation is now under way to make Reid pay back the proceeds of his crime.