Six drug traffickers who tried to convince a jury that £1 million of cocaine and cannabis cash was really “goat money” will spend a combined 60 years behind bars after Judge Martin Walsh passed sentence at Bolton Crown Court this morning.

The hearing ends Operation Image, a two-year Greater Manchester Police probe that began in March 2024 when Border Force officers pulled 8 kg of 80-percent-pure cocaine from luggage on a Jamaica-to-Manchester flight. Surveillance linked the haul to addresses in Gorton, Didsbury and Stockport; a second raid in December 2024 uncovered another 4 kg of cocaine, thousands of MDMA and 2-CB tablets, 1 kg of cannabis and £100,000 cash. Phone and banking records showed regular contact with a man deported from the UK to Jamaica and repeated transfers that two defendants insisted were “for the purchasing of goats, not drugs”.

Darren Bailey, 46, of Lisburne Lane, Offerton, received the longest term - 19 years - after jurors convicted him of conspiracy to import, supply and produce both class A and class B drugs. Nathan Charles, 35, of Highfield Range, Gorton, was given 17 years on identical counts. Adrian Stephenson, 35, of Peers Street, Bury, was sentenced to 9½ years; Panashe Nyamariwata, 28, of Adelphi Road, Salford, to six years; Charlene Bellamy, 42, of Fairway Road, Oldham, to five years; and Kamica Morris, 30, of Hanworth Close, Manchester, to four years. Hannah Conlon, 34, of Cherry Avenue, Bury, who was convicted of importing class B drugs after cannabis posted from America to her home was intercepted, will learn her fate at Liverpool Crown Court on 20 April 2026.

Detective Constable Ryan O’Hanlon said the guilty verdicts show “the jury saw through their lies” and promised police will “keep targeting the organised crime groups that blight our communities”.

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