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A dad who was part of a £4m drug racket was caught on camera laughing as he counted his dirty money boasting 'what d'ya reckon? Half day's work?'
Ricky Lee, 31, Christopher Gresty, 56, and his son Louis Gresty, 25, from Salford, were jailed for dealing drugs in Manchester, Liverpool and Coventry during the first coronavirus lockdown.
In a video seized by police, Lee is seen counting a pile of cash and joking: "What d'you reckon that is? Half a day's work!?" The trio's operation was busted by Greater Manchester Police as part of Operation Venetic, which used data hacked from EncroChat's servers in northern France in April 2020.
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Christopher Gresty, a key player in the drug operation, stored drugs, debt lists, scales, and bags at his flat in Eccles. His son, Louis, was the street-level dealer, accepting payments for cocaine and cannabis via bank transfer, the MEN reports.
Police raided their homes in May 2021 and January 2022, uncovering evidence of a profitable drug sales network. Despite this, the audacious trio continued to supply customers in Salford and Tyldesley until their arrest in September 2022.
When police searched Lee's house on Eccles Road in Swinton, they found £25,000 in cash hidden around the property. Lee claimed the money came from his dog breeding business, which he used as a cover for his criminal activities during the first national coronavirus lockdown.
At Christopher Gresty's flat, police discovered nearly £25,000 in cash, cocaine, scales, bags, and handwritten debt lists. At Louis Gresty's house, they caught him trying to flush bags of cocaine down the toilet.
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During the trial, it was revealed that the accused hadn't taken a day off from dealing cocaine in 40 weeks. The court heard that he had supplied over 5kg of the drug for about £343,000.
In just nine weeks, the gang moved a whopping 43.5 kilograms of cocaine and 11.5 kilograms of cannabis with a street value of over £4m.
The EncroChat servers hack exposed Lee's plan to use his dog breeding business as a cover for his illegal activities during lockdown.
Lee was found to be splashing his drug money on private IVF treatment with his partner, with police tracing over £10,000 spent at one clinic.
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However, Lee claimed to have spent a whopping £86,000 over two years on the treatment.
The pair were also involved in a scam to rip off other dealers by diluting their cocaine with other substances. Christopher Gresty shelled out nearly £1,000 for a hydraulic press to re-press the tampered cocaine back into blocks.
Lee, from Swinton, was sentenced to 14 years behind bars after admitting to conspiracy to supply cocaine, cannabis and money laundering.
Christopher Gresty, also from Eccles, received an eleven-year sentence for the same offences. Louis Gresty, of Salford, was handed a three-year sentence.
* This article was crafted with the help of an AI tool, which speeds up Daily Star's editorial research. An editor reviewed this content before it was published. You can report any errors to [email protected]
- Cannabis
- money
- Drugs
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