18 YEARS’ IMPRISONMENT FOR LONDON DRUG DEALER

Last month, Mark Gadsden successfully secured the conviction of a south London drug dealer accused of the importation of 540 kilos of cocaine over a nine-month period and associated money-laundering offences and today he was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment. This sentence is to run concurrently with a 10-year sentence of imprisonment which he had received in November last year for the related supply of 5 kilos of cocaine. 

The offences were investigated by the Organised Crime Partnership (“OCP”) which is a joint National Crime Agency (“NCA”) and Metropolitan Police Service (“MPS”) unit.

When he was arrested originally for the supply of the 5 kilos (with an estimated street value of £180,000), he was found to have three mobile phones on him, one of which was an encrypted EncroChat device. Subsequent forensic examination of this device revealed his orchestration of the importation of more than half a tonne of cocaine over nine months. This cocaine was over 100 times’ the amount for which he was originally arrested and was worth approximately £17 million.

Media: NCA Press Release