A pair of dealers from Dundee who complained how the Covid lockdown had hit high-level drugs trade have both been jailed for almost four years.
Craig Garland, 37, and Brandon Guthrie, 31, admitted their involvement in a leading mob who planned to flood Scotland with cocaine.
The pair were snared as part of the police probe “Operation Ranger”.
They were said to be working under the orders of gang boss Ronald Ferrie, who died in 2021.
Garland and Guthrie were each jailed for a total of three years and nine months at the High Court in Glasgow.
The hearing was told how police had information Ferrie was involved in large-scale drug trafficking throughout Scotland.
The gang was caught after the law authorities busted the EncroChat phone network favoured by criminals.
Messages revealed Guthrie was responsible for ferrying “significant quantities” of drugs and collecting payment.
Garland helped store, prepare and bulk out the narcotics to maximise profits.
Covid ‘f***ing disaster’
Gang boss Ferrie was known as “northjoshua” on EncroChat, Garland as “surlybuster” and Guthrie as “summernorth”.
The messages included chats about high purity cocaine valued at £41,000 per kilogram.
Guthrie moaned to Garland at one stage how, in April 2020 at the height of the Covid lockdown, the pandemic had “resulted in a £400,000 reduction in revenue” to their criminal associates.
It was described as a “f***ing disaster”.
It also emerged Ferrie was owed £250,000 at one stage.
The court heard Garland and Guthrie were part of more than 2,000 “lines of conversation” via the network discussing their criminal activities.
Trackers on dealers’ vehicles
Police swooped at Guthrie’s home on October 30 2020.
A Peugeot van was parked outside, later found to be registered to Ferrie.
Metal plates for a hydraulic press to help prepare and package drugs were found in the van.
Garland’s home was searched and around £2,000 of a substance to bulk out illegal substances was seized.
A mobile phone was found with texts linking him to drug-dealing.
Prosecutor Alan Parfery said: “There are also messages that show another more senior member of the group had fitted trackers to vehicles so that Guthrie and associates’ movements could be followed as a form of work monitoring.”
Police seized £23,000 of cocaine as well as a 20-tonne hydraulic press.
The pair, both of Dundee, pleaded guilty to charges of being involved in serious organised crime as well as the supply of cocaine.
Garland was involved between March and October 2020 with Guthrie’s role only lasting from March to June of the same year.
Sentencing
Sentencing judge Lord Arthurson told the pair: “Significant headline sentences are inevitable for offending of this gravity.”
He cut Garland’s term from five years and Guthrie from four-and-a-half years due to the guilty pleas.
The judge said an “illustration” of the scale of the gang was how the pair “discussed together a £400,000 reduction in revenue in the organised crime activity caused by the pandemic”.
Sineidin Corrins, Deputy Procurator Fiscal for Specialist Casework at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), said: “Craig Garland and Brandon Guthrie failed in their attempts to distribute significant quantities of illegal and harmful drugs among Scottish communities.
“These two men are now serving prison sentences thanks to an extensive police operation, working with COPFS, to investigate a network of drug supply.
“This prosecution sends out a strong message about our determination to tackle Serious Organised Crime and the trafficking of controlled drugs.”
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