Last member of cocaine gang sentenced nearly five years after fleeing to Dubai

HE ORDERED COURIERS TO BRING HIGH-PURITY DRUG INTO COUNTY

- By MARTIN NAYLOR

THE final member of a drugs gang which flooded Nottingham with high-purity cocaine was eventually arrested at Frankfurt Airport having been on the run in Dubai for almost five years.

Nottingham Crown Court heard how John Juniper ordered couriers to bring multi-kilo consignments of the highly addictive Class A powder to organised crime gangs based in the city and in Eastwood.

On one occasion, a driver was caught with £500,000 in cash and another was snared with 3kg of the substance. Those gang members were jailed in March 2023 to a combined total of more than 160 years for their criminal activity.

Now, two and a half years later, the 50-year-old defendant has learned his fate.

Jailing Juniper for 11 years and four months, Judge Steven Coupland said: “I accept there were other people above you who were importing large quantities of drugs but you were also involved at a high level organising couriers to deliver substantial amounts of cocaine into the area.

“Your operation used EncroChat to communicate between you and because of that it was a large-scale operation involving serious criminals.