Six men, including one from Dewsbury, have been convicted for their part in a £1.6m drugs operation which saw cocaine taken from Yorkshire to Leicestershire.

Police began to unravel the operation last November when officers stopped the car of one of the men, Jonathon Lightbrown.

He was found to have 2kg of cocaine in his car.

Officers had previously seen him meeting another member of the gang, Jason Gooch, 41, of Crown Flatt Way, Dewsbury, in the car park of a fast food restaurant at Meridian Leisure Park.

Police were able to show that money was exchanged for drugs at the meeting.

Another man, Rishi Karir, had been seen delivering the same bag exchanged at the car park to Lightbrown earlier that morning, containing £25,000.

Using mobile phone data Gooch was found to have made several trips from his home in Dewsbury to Leicester to deliver drugs.

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When police searched the homes of the six conspirators they found drugs, drugs paraphernalia and items related to the preparation of drugs.

Four defendants admitted their involvement in the supply of Class A drugs, with Gooch and another man being found guilty after a trial at Leicester Crown Court.

Gooch was found guilty of conspiracy to supply class A drugs (cocaine) between October and November 2016.

The investigation was carried out by the East Midlands Special Operations Unit and involved tracking the movements of the defendants through Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and analysis of phone data after their arrests to see who was in contact with who.

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ANPR work has shown Gooch travelled to Leicester to deliver the cocaine on November 22.

This was found to be just one of a number of trips Gooch made to Leicester over the previous months to deliver large quantities of drugs.

Phone data has proven that extensive contact was made between all the defendants.

Investigator Matthew Ridley said: “This has been a lengthy investigation into the supply of drugs in Leicester and is something that we take incredibly seriously; we want to take drugs off the streets of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

The gang will be sentenced at Leicester Crown Court at a future date.