Gangsters producing and selling drugs worth £1 million, possessing counterfeit currency and laundering money in Slough received lengthy prison terms after a police investigation.
Paul El-Shahar, 42 of no fixed abode, and Mark Richard Ryan, 35 of Shrewsbury Street, Kensington & Chelsea, operated in a four-man criminal gang and were trialled at Southwark Crown Court on Monday 14th December.
El-Shahar, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment having previously been convicted of conspiracy to supply class A drugs, conspiracy to produce class A drugs, money laundering and possession of counterfeit currency.
Ryan, was sentenced to eleven years and six months for the same offences.
The police operation conducted by the Met’s Specialist Operations Crime Disruption Unit found the gang to be supplying both class A and B drugs.
The illegal activity first came to officers’ attention during an investigation of a separate and unrelated matter.
On the 4th April 2019, during a search of the facility in Slough, detectives found over £80,000 in counterfeit cash, class A and B drugs with a street value of approximately £1,000,000, machinery and equipment used in the production of class A drugs, £15,000 in cash as well as rounds of live ammunition.
Ryan, El-Shahar and a third man Andrew Nugent, 32 of Chelmsford Close, Hammersmith and Fulham were suspected of producing and supplying class A drugs at the site and were subsequently charged with the above offences.
During a continued investigation, Adam John Gale, 44 of Cleverly Estate, Hammersmith and Fulham was also identified.
Detectives found that Gale had left the UK on the same day they carried out the search at the facility in Slough.
Officers obtained a European Arrest Warrant for Gale and he was located and arrested in Spain.
He was extradited back to the UK, where he was arrested and later charged on the 6th August 2019.
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