A 41-YEAR-OLD man described as a major drug dealer in the Coleraine and Ballymena areas has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years after he admitted to supplying amphetamines.
Mark Dunford, of Ballylagan Lane, Coleraine, Co Derry, has already served seven months in jail and was sentenced to an additional four-and-a-half years, half of which is to be spent in prison, at Dungannon Crown Court on Tuesday.
The court also made a confiscation order of £90,000 or an additional five years in jail.
In 2015, Dunford went on the run to Spain after failing to turn up for a sentencing hearing. He was arrested in June last year with help from gardaí, Spanish police and the UK's National Crime Agency.
The police operation began after officers found amphetamines and cocaine in cars and a van in the Coleraine and Ballymena areas in September 2012. More than a thousand Ecstasy tablets were also found in the garden of a house in Portglenone, Co Antrim.
The drugs were worth a total of £893,000.
Police linked Dunford, who has previous drugs convictions, to the seizure.
Two other members of the drugs gang, Robert Holmes (42) of Glenone Villas, Portglenone, and Steven McBride of Foundry Court, Coleraine, were previously both jailed for 15 months for drug crimes.
PSNI Detective Sergeant Gary Moore said Dunford had organised a large number of amphetamines to be brought from England into the north.
"Mark Dunford believed he was untouchable because, in common parlance, he never got his hands dirty," he said.
"He directed and controlled this criminality from what he believed was a safe distance, using a mobile phone and willing accomplices."
Mr Moore said five vehicles owned by the drugs gang had been sold at auction to benefit two drugs charities in Derry.
"A confiscation investigation has started to remove any material benefits derived from this group’s criminality," he said.
