Police

Cutting agents and chemicals used to bulk out illegal drugs found in clock tower at Sittingbourne farm

Police

Four members of a drug trafficking chain have been found guilty of supplying illegal drugs across the south east.

An investigation by the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate revealed how a clock tower at defendant Ty Traton Ripley’s farm in Bredgar, near Sittingbourne, was used to store barrels full of cutting agents and chemicals.

These were used to bulk out smaller quantities of pure drugs once imported.

Ripley, who was at the hub of the profitable drug trafficking group, was found guilty at Maidstone Crown Court of assisting in the supply of class A and B drugs.

Omar Sadique, 29, of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, who supplied the cutting agents and chemicals to Ripley, was also convicted of assisting in the supply of class A and B drugs.

Dealers Raymond Heather, 52, of Lambeth, London, and his partner Tracey McCarthy, 50, of Rotherhithe, London, were each found guilty of conspiracy to supply cocaine.

Ripley, of Swanton Street, Bredgar, Sittingbourne, along with Sadique, Heather and McCarthy, are due to be sentenced tomorrow.