A mother who made more than £145,00 selling drugs over WhatsApp in a commercial-scale operation has been ordered to pay less than £5,000 back.
Shalane Hodder, 36, was jailed for two years and six months after being found with more than 92,000 tablets – worth up to £112,000 – at her home in Trinant, Caerphilly, and at a caravan in Blackwood.
The defendant received payments of £145,000 between January and September 2019 from a customer network of almost 10,500 people in more than 100 WhatsApp groups.
Hodder's partner Laurie Parfitt, 31, and her brother Rhys Dee, 28, were also involved in the enterprise by allowing their bank accounts to be used to launder money. Both were sentenced to a 12-month community order.
On Thursday prosecutor Matthew Cobbe told a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Cardiff Crown Court that Hodder had benefited by £145,420.85 through the drug operation. But the court heard the available figure the defendant would be able to pay back was £4,937.62.
Recorder Bilal Siddique ordered for this sum to be paid within three months or for Hodder to serve three months imprisonment in default.
Speaking at the sentencing hearing on January 29, Recorder David Harris said: "This was a large-scale operation. I imagine it grew and by the time you were arrested it had become a substantial commercial operation.
"You were using your home as a base to sell Class C drugs in the main that you had imported from India to a large body of customers you had made contact with via WhatsApp. You likely profited substantially from this operation and the sum you received amounted to £145,000."
The drugs were mainly benzodiazepines and included Pregabalin, Etizolam, Clonazepam, Bromazepam, Nitrazepam, Zopiclone, Alprazolam, Lorazepam, EMB-FUBINACA, Eutylone, codeine, Tramadol, Diazepam, and Flualprazolam.
The total amount of tablets found came to 92,034 and it took six months for officers to identify the types of drugs involved and their respective quantities.
A key to a caravan was also seized and a caravan in Pen-y-Fan park in Oakdale was searched where a large number of blue tablets were seized.
Hodder, of Philip Street, pleaded guilty to being concerned in fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of controlled drugs, supplying controlled drugs, supplying a psychoactive substance, and possession with intent to supply controlled drugs.
