REVEALED: How dealer hid cocaine and cash in house discovered after £2.5m drug bust
This is the man at the heart of a £2.5 million drugs factory central to the supply of drugs across the West Midlands.
Daljinder Bassi stashed cash and drugs in the walls of his house, where he prepared huge quantities of heroin and cocaine before it was was sold onto dealers.
But his movements were being tracked by officers who seized their chance to apprehend Bassi.
How did police smash the drugs operation?
He was stopped in October 2016 as he drove along the M6, near junction seven at Great Barr, with three kilos of heroin in the footwell of his Volkswagen Golf.
When they searched his home in Stafford Road, Oxley, Wolverhampton, officers found cash and class A drugs in powder, rock and block form.
They were concealed in various hiding places, including under the floorboards, beneath the insulation in the loft and within the wall cavities.
The cash hidden in the walls was only accessible from the loft using a home-made pulley system.
Officers seized £737,000 in cash and a further 22kg of heroin, cocaine and mixing agents such as caffeine and paracetamol.
The total drugs recovered would have had a total estimated street value of £2.5 million.
How did the drugs factory operate?
Bassi used his house to cut, package and store large quantities of heroin and cocaine before selling it on to dealers.
A hydraulic press which investigators believe Bassi used to pack the drugs into blocks, and two ledgers comprised of customer details and their orders were also seized.
Take a look at the amount of cash and drugs seized
What happened to Bassi?
Bassi, who appeared in court on video link, pleaded guilty to three counts of possession with intent to supply heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine, and a further charge of money laundering.
The 36-year-old was sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday to 13-years imprisonment.
The court heard he had two previous convictions for conspiracy to supply drugs and possession of ammunition without a certificate for which he was jailed in 2009 for 10 years.
Defending him, Mr Balbir Singh argued he was further down the supply chain than suggested. He had stayed out of trouble for four years following his release, said Mr Singh.
But Judge Dean Kershaw concluded Bassi had a leading role in an operation.
The investigation was jointly led by National Crime Agency (NCA) and Met Police Organised Crime Partnership (OCP) with support from West Midlands Police.
Matt McMillan from the Organised Crime Partnership, said: “Bassi was a major distributor of class A drugs in the West Midlands.
“By shutting down his illegal enterprise, not only have we have eliminated a key link in the chain between high end traffickers and street level dealers, but a huge amount of cash has been removed from the criminal economy."
