A North Weald drug dealer caught with £200,000 of cocaine has been jailed.

Steven Hayes was arrested in November of last year after he was caught handing cocaine over to Clive Holmes, 46, from High Wycombe.

The 30-year-old from North Weald met with Holmes in Kingsmead Business Park car park in High Wycombe.

The men were under surveillance as part of a National Crime Agency investigation.

Officers detained Holmes after seeing him get into Hayes’ car empty-handed, and then leave holding a supermarket bag.

The bag was found to contain a brick-sized block of cocaine weighing a kilogram.

Shortly after, Hayes was stopped whilst driving in Epping, and subsequently failed a drugs test.

NCA investigators carried out further searches, and another three blocks of cocaine, weighing a kilo each, were recovered at a container unit that Hayes rented in Basildon.

The four kilos would have been worth up to £200,000 if sold on the streets of the UK.

Evidence of drug supply was found at both of their homes, including scales, a vacuum packing machine and white powder.

The boot of Hayes’ car was also found to have been modified to contain a hidden storage compartment.

On May 25 at Chelmsford Crown Court, Hayes was sentenced to five years and Holmes was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, having both pleaded guilty to charges at an earlier hearing.

Adam Berry, Operations Manager at the NCA said: ‘These men were involved in the distribution of cocaine for criminal profit, and it is important that they have been brought to account.

“The cocaine trade drives violence and intimidation in communities across the UK. The NCA continues to target and pursue those involved in Class A drugs supply, and to protect the public from the impact of serious and organised crime.”

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