THE leader of a Carlisle cocaine supply gang has been ordered to hand over £51,000 having raked in almost £340,000 from criminal conduct.
Scott Sutherland, now 26, was one of seven men given prison terms – some suspended – for plotting to supply the class A drug during a period spanning several months of 2017.
Sutherland headed a criminal gang which included a pensioner, a grandad and an ex-England schoolboy boxing champion. But members were rounded up and brought to justice as police mounted a covert operation during which a kilo of cocaine, and bulking agents, were seized from a house in the city. Carlisle Crown Court heard a 6kg total haul could potentially have been produced, possibly worth around £300,000 in street sales.
All defendants admitted conspiracy to supply the class A drug, and were sentenced in May. Sutherland, then of Shawk Crescent, Thursby, received an eight-year jail term for his major role.
Police investigators set about trying to claw back the criminal proceeds of his offending.
And at the city’s crown court today (FRI), it emerged Sutherland’s financial benefit from illegal activity had been a massive £339,199.41. Enquiries had concluded that his available assets were to the tune of £51,235.29. This, it was revealed, would be derived mostly from the sale of a van and the contents of a bank account which included house sale proceeds.
Judge Andrew Jefferies QC ordered that sum to be confiscated, and added: “In default, Mr Sutherland will serve nine months’ imprisonment consecutively to the prison sentence he is currently serving.”
