A DRUGS baron behind one of the most significant heroin supply networks in Nuneaton is to have assets of just over £2,600 confiscated despite raking in an estimated £400,000 turnover.
Carl Bradford, whose drug-dealing empire was brought down after an under-cover police operation named Operation Laser, is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence.
Bradford,aged 42 of Haunchwood Road, Nuneaton, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court earlier this year to conspiracy to supply heroin and money laundering.
But despite it being estimated that his operation had a turnover of £400,000 in ten months, a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act was told a financial investigation had put his benefit from dealing at just £8,136.
Prosecutor Matthew Brook said it was agreed Bradford’s assets are worth a total of £2,616.97. So Recorder Adrienne Lucking ordered that amount to be confiscated from Bradford and ordered him to serve a consecutive three-month sentence if it is not paid within six months.
During the original hearing Mr Brook said the case concerned ‘one of the most significant heroin supply networks operating in Nuneaton last year.’ Bradford and another man were the ‘managers’ of the operation, and paid others in cash or heroin to supply the drug on the streets.
Another person travelled to Birmingham every day to buy an ounce of heroin for £700 for Bradford who divided it into about 142 £10 wraps which the others then sold, bringing in around £1,400 a day.
Through a known drug-user he met, an under-cover officer known as Craig bought drugs from Bradford’s team. When the police raided Bradford’s home in August they found receipts which showed that, despite having no legitimate income, he had spent more than £3,500 in cash on furniture and electrical items in a 12-month period.
Bradford later claimed his grandfather had given him the money after withdrawing it from a bank account. But the police found his grandfather was in a home suffering from dementia and did not have a bank account. When his sales team were arrested one of them told the police he had been installed in a flat over a Nuneaton firework shop to use as a base for selling drugs for Bradford.
Andrew Molloy, for Bradford, conceded there was very limited mitigation apart from his plea, but he had no previous drug convictions and was not taking heroin himself.
Judge Marten Coates commented at that hearing: "I wonder whether, when someone who is clean is peddling drugs to addicts, it is an aggravating feature."
And he told Bradford: "You with another were at the top of this conspiracy. You were selling heroin through others including the three who stand with you in the dock."
He pointed out that with takings of £1,400 on the ounce of heroin Bradford bought each day, that amounted to a turnover of around £400,000 during the ten months covered by the indictment.
"Bradford, you are at a level the court does not often see. You deal through others, and this conspiracy was essentially your enterprise,"he added.
"You have made a living out of it 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
