Two drugs gang members who oversaw the distribution of cocaine flown into the UK in helicopters set up a clothing firm and called it 'Cartel'.
Jason Wilton and Gary McCarten were senior figures in a multi-million pound Class A network supplied by one of the most significant criminals to have emerged from Merseyside in recent years.
They were locked up last week as the long-running investigation into that conspiracy claimed its latest victims.
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Wilton and McCarten played key roles in linking Merseyside drugs suppliers to the dealers who would flood the streets of the North East with their illicit substances.
The cocaine was flown into the UK in an audacious scheme led by Birkenhead gangster Lance Kennedy.
Kennedy pulled the strings from Spain as helicopters loaded with cocaine were flown into southern England, landing to be unloaded at secluded countryside rental homes booked on the flightpaths.
The smuggled cocaine would typically be transported to the North East by Merseyside couriers.
Wilton and McCarten would oversee what happened to the drugs once they arrived in the North East, with McCarten personally meeting those who ferried the drugs north.
The pair also directed couriers and minders on their own patch.
As well as their drug dealing exploits, they ran a clothes store in the Stockton area. In an apparent reference to the South American gangs that export much of the world's cocaine, they named the shop Cartel.
Both were jailed at Teeside Crown Court on Friday, TeesideLive reported.
McCarten, 38 and of Wimpole Road, Fairfield, Stockton, and Wilton, 33, were each sentenced to six years and four months for their roles in the Class A conspiracy.
** Could the men have chose a more conspicuous name for their clothes business? Head to the comments
They were jailed along with four others as part of Cleveland Police's Operation Spoonbill, the investigation that brought down Kennedy and his network.
In 2019, Kennedy was jailed for 18 years and four months for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs after being captured trying to cross from Moldova to Ukraine with a close associate.
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