Members of an £8m drugs gang which flooded Wrexham with cocaine have been jailed for a total of 86 years.
The organised crime group from Merseyside, who had access to guns and ammunition, transported drugs to towns and cities across the UK as part of their operation.
The group of six men were believed to be responsible for selling more than 200kg of cocaine with a street value of more than £8m during a seven-month period in locations across the country.
They distributed kilogrammes of the drug to locations including Wrexham , Bradford, Bolton, Newcastle and London every day.
But they are now behind bars after an investigation led by the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit discovered that more than 100 drug runs were made by the gang between December 2018 and June 2019.
Crime boss James Kelly, 36, from St Helens, was responsible for the wholesale distribution of cocaine on a daily basis to locations across the country from his home address.
On June 25, Kelly was arrested at his home before officers found £20,000 cash by his front door and two encrypted phones Kelly used to communicate with his crime group, who were selling the drugs on his behalf.
He was communicating with his brother Stephen Kelly, 42, from Liverpool, who was responsible for laundering the proceeds of the drug operation, and Dean Woods, 37, from Liverpool, who was a trusted courier.
James Kelly was jailed for 19 years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs at Liverpool Crown Court on Wednesday, while Stephen Kelly was jailed for 20 years and nine months for the same offence.
Woods was jailed for 12 years for the same offence.
Also jailed was Mark Dermott, 32, from Kirkdale, who supplied the gang with the drugs they later sold. At his home, officers found an industrial drug press.
At a second address in Old Swan, linked to Dermott, two Russian-made Makarov self-loading pistols and more than 40 rounds of Bulgarian ammunition were discovered.
He was sentenced to 19 years and six months in prison.
Two other trusted couriers were jailed for their roles in the gang.
Liam Hart, 36, from Kirkby, was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison after he was found in possession of 4kg of cocaine when he was stopped by police on the M6 during a drugs run.
Courier Paul Speedy, 57, from Kirkdale, who drove to more than 66 locations across the country and also took James Kelly to meetings with customers across the country, was jailed for eight years and eight months.
Temporary Detective Superintendent Ian Hussey, from the NWROCU, said: "This crime group were distributing multi-kilos of cocaine on a daily basis across the UK to Bradford, Bolton, Newcastle, London, Nottingham, Scunthorpe, Sheffield and Wrexham.
"James Kelly ran the drugs operation from his home address in St Helens, using members of his OCG to transport and sell the drugs on his behalf.
"He also enlisted his brother’s help to launder the money they made from the selling the drugs.
“This is an extremely dangerous set of individuals who have links to firearms, two of which were seized, along with ammunition, at an address in Old Swan, Liverpool, linked to Mark Dermott.
“I hope the significant prison sentences these individuals have received will serve to reassure communities in Merseyside, of how seriously we take drug dealing, and the use of firearms, which have no place on our streets in the North West.”
