A PETERSFIELD man has been sent to prison for five years and six months for his part in cocaine deals worth £30m.

Nicholas Elliott (43), of Windsor Road, was sentenced at Stoke on Trent Crown Court in December, while other gang members from the Midlands were sentenced in January, and on February 25 and 26.

Including Elliott, 12 members of organised crime groups were arrested in 2016, and jailed for 100 years between them for supplying cocaine and importing the cutting agent benzocaine from China. In total they imported more than 675 kilos of benzocaine, a powder that looks like cocaine and has a similar effect.

As well as using it to dilute pure cocaine for resale, the gang distributed it across the UK.

Drug experts working with detectives from Staffordshire Police calculated the wholesale street value of the resulting benzocaine cut cocaine at more than £30m.

The court heard that gang member Elliott had the name ‘Gaz – Coke-on-Trent’ stored in his phone, referring to Potteries-based dealer Gareth Marsh and the quality of the product he was selling.

Judge Dean Kershaw also heard Elliott travelled from Hampshire to Stafford to buy cocaine, and then returned to Petersfield and sold the drug on.

The result of Elliott’s court hearing, and later ones of fellow gang members, couldn’t be reported until the last men were sentenced at the end of February.

Detective Inspector Lesley Fowler, of Staffordshire Police’s Major and Organised Crime department, said: “This was a sophisticated and highly-organised operation supplying drugs nationwide. When used to dilute cocaine, benzocaine is an integral part of a multi-million pound supply chain. This was a complex investigation, so we’re delighted in the sentences.”