Newport drug lord Robert Andrews Jr jailed 14 years for cocaine and heroin empire

Robert Andrews Jr, a father from Newport who appeared entirely unremarkable, ran a multi-million pound drug empire across south Wales. He was sentenced to 14 years and eight months at Newport Crown Court.

Newport man who hid drug millions behind ordinary facade jailed for nearly 15 years

A 34-year-old man from Newport who concealed a multi-million pound cocaine and heroin operation behind the appearance of an ordinary working father has been sentenced to 14 years and eight months in prison, bbc.com reports.

Robert Andrews Jr was convicted at Newport Crown Court on two counts — conspiracy to supply cocaine and heroin, and actual supply of those drugs — after admitting the charges at the start of 2024. Half of the sentence will be served in custody and the remainder on licence.

Andrews Jr first came to the attention of Gwent Police not through direct surveillance, but through a chance discovery. When officers arrested another drugs kingpin, Kerry Evans, who lived roughly 30 miles away in Merthyr Tydfil, they found his phone contained repeated WhatsApp exchanges with a single number — one registered to Andrews Jr. Evans was subsequently sentenced to 14 years and five months.

"It doesn't require a mass of information, sometimes it's just a little nugget that can start the job off," said Detective Inspector Ian Bartholomew of Gwent Police.

The messages between the two men, in which they joked they would either end up "millionaires" or "sharing a cell", indicated Andrews Jr was operating at a high level. Detectives were warned that "advanced tactics" would be required because he could prove "difficult to catch".

Woodland clearing used as exchange point

Under Operation Mayland, covert officers followed Andrews Jr to a secluded patch of woodland near the M4 motorway, an area that became known internally as "the clearing". Multiple drug exchanges were filmed there in broad daylight.

"You'd only go there if you knew it or had specific directions," the covert officer who led the surveillance told the BBC. "It was a real safe place where the organised crime group could conduct their criminality and feel like they weren't in the public eye."

One surveillance operation led to the arrest of taxi driver Mohammed Yamin, whose cab was stopped by police after he left the clearing carrying 2kg of high-purity cocaine collected from Andrews Jr. The drugs had a street value of around £200,000. Yamin received a six-and-a-half year prison sentence for possession with intent to supply.

Officers also documented how Andrews Jr managed payments to his own supplier using a verification system built around banknote serial numbers. In one recorded exchange, a man got into Andrews Jr's car and handed him a £5 note. Andrews Jr did not know the man personally, but the unique serial number on the note served as authentication that the individual was a legitimate cash runner sent from London. The bag later seized from that runner was found to contain £109,000.

Phone records showed the scale of the financial flows involved. In a two-week period alone, Andrews Jr made six payments to his suppliers totalling £650,000.

No designer clothes, but a £60,000 kitchen

Nothing about Andrews Jr's day-to-day appearance suggested significant wealth. He wore work clothes, drove no high-value vehicle, owned no designer items, and lived in a modest end-of-terrace house with his partner and children.

"There was nothing flash about him at all, nothing screamed this person is a drug dealer," the covert officer said.

Police believed, however, that he was channelling drug proceeds into the construction of a new home on secluded land. When officers raided the unfinished property, they found a £60,000 kitchen and lavish furnishings — items that, the arresting officer said, an "average working person wouldn't have been able to afford".

Andrews Jr was arrested in an early-morning raid just before Christmas 2023. As officers entered the bedroom, he threw his mobile phone on top of a wardrobe in a last attempt to conceal evidence. He was described as laughing and appearing "quite unfazed" as he was handcuffed. The phone was recovered and proved central to the prosecution, containing detailed logs of orders, outstanding payments, and amounts owed to suppliers.

Industrial-scale operation across south Wales

Detective Chief Superintendent Andrew Tuck described the operation as far removed from street-level dealing.

"Robert Andrews wasn't somebody who was dealing on a street corner or to his friends," Tuck said. "He was dealing in large quantities, kilo amounts of controlled drugs — cocaine the size of a bag of sugar at a time."

Police regarded Andrews Jr as the principal figure in an organised crime group that supplied cocaine and heroin across south Wales. Individual exchanges involved up to four or five kilos of cocaine and cash transfers running to tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time.

Although Andrews Jr admitted the charges at the beginning of 2024, the sentencing was delayed by almost two years owing to the number of linked cases that needed to be resolved before the court could proceed. The sentence was handed down earlier this month at Newport Crown Court.

Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)