Crawley and Brighton drug gangsters face jail

After a gruelling 14-week trial six men now face decades behind bars for their part in the conspiracy.

On October 31 last year Detective Constable Peter Stapleton, dressed as a postman, knocked on the door of a house in Hophurst Drive, Crawley Down.

He was carrying jiffy bags with Peruvian postmarks - dummies of parcels intercepted in Germany.

The man who answered the door, Paul Casella, was staying at the home of his brother Richard.

He sleepily accepted the parcels.

The next knock on the door was from Detective Constable Caroline Robinson who showed him her badge and arrested him.

While police were at the house, a real postman delivered another package from Peru.

It contained 37 grams of 97 per cent pure cocaine.

The first steps in what Sussex Police's Serious Organised Crime Unit dubbed Operation Zoffany had been a success.

For the next few weeks similar finds were made at addresses in and around Crawley.

The investigation was sparked by the discovery of several Crawley-bound packages containing cocaine by German customs officers at Frankfurt Airport.

At Hove Crown Court tomorrow the operation will come to an end with the sentencing of six men for their part in a plot to smuggle cocaine worth millions of pounds into Sussex.

The lucrative but short-lived scheme saw drugs posted to a series of addresses in and around Crawley, Horsham and Brighton.

Three consignments of cocaine are known to have been sent from Peru between July and October last year.

More is thought to have found its way into clubs, pubs and the streets of Crawley, Brighton and other Sussex towns before the ring was discovered The substances would have been worth £2 million if converted into crack cocaine.

The money for the smuggling operation was put up by Lubhia Ram, a well-known face in the clubs, bars and restaurants of Crawley.

The 44-year-old, branded the operation's "head of finance" by detectives, provided £53,000 to buy the drugs.

Ram bragged about being a millionaire and sported designer jewellery and other trappings of wealth.

He was driven round Crawley in a black Range Rover while his other cars included a BMW and a £90,000 supercharged Mercedes AMG.

His haunts included the Ja Ja Bar in Crawley,and the VIP lounge of the town's Liquid Envy nightclub where he drank champagne at £80 a bottle.

Ram told the jury he made his money by running ice cream vans from his family's Southern Counties business in Three Bridges, Crawley, and his Brighton shop.

He claimed he thought he was investing in a new pornographic magazine by giving Oscar Salas-Weslke his money.

Evidence showed that cocaine worth £36,810 had been sent to flats linked to him and Salas-Weslke at Pulman Court, Delfont Close, Crawley.

When police searched the addresses they found torn-up pages from a diary and a notebook.

After the pieces were put together they contained a full handwritten list of the addresses where the drugs were sent.

Police learned maintenance men had been called to the flat because the toilet was blocked and found Peruvian purses and polythene dry-cleaning covers in the drains.

Salas-Weslke, 54, lived at a number of addresses cocaine was destined for in Crawley.

Detectives referred to him as the operation's "head of purchasing".

He helped Ram mastermind the plot and went three times to Peru between June and August last year to organise the buying and posting of the cocaine.

The jury unanimously found him guilty of his part in the conspiracy.

Salas-Weslke was born in Peru where he made jewellery to sell to tourists.

He moved to England and settled in Crawley after meeting and marrying an English tourist in 1976.

The cocaine user, who was jailed for ten years in Peru for possessing the drug, was also jailed in Britain in 1999 along with another gang who plotted to bring cocaine into the country through the post from Peru.

He later worked at Gatwick airport before training as a chef and landing work in the kitchens of a school in Horsham.

He was introduced to Ram through a cocaine dealer and became his right-hand man.

Salas-Welske was arrested after he fled to Cornwall to hide at his youngest son Raymi's home in Buddock Terrace, Falmouth.

More empty Peruvian purses and film canisters were found there.

He also had a diary and notebook which were forensically proven to be the origin of the torn pages found by the police in the bin at Delfont Close.

His son, Nathan Chapman-Salas, 28, of Innes Road, Horsham, acted as "gofer" for his father and Ram.

Police dubbed him the "head of distribution".

He flew with his father to Peru in June last year as the conspiracy was being organised.

On his return he used the Western Union offices in Crawley to wire money supplied by Ram to Salas-Weslke in Peru.

He then collected the packages after they arrived in Crawley.

Nathan was found guilty by the jury on a majority verdict of nine to one.

The married father-of-three was born in England but spent part of his childhood in Peru.

Chapman-Salas is a dedicated Tottenham Hotspur fan and cheekily used Spurs goalkeeper Paul Robinson's name on packages of cocaine posted to Trevor Bowden's address in Clive Way, Crawley.

Another fake name used was George Galloway, the radical MP.

Nathan told police he knew about his father being jailed for drugs offences in the past, but claimed he accepted his father's word that he was not using him for anything illegal.

He also claimed he thought the films contained pornography.

Other defendants told the jury Nathan had been put under pressure by his father.

Two Peruvian purses containing cocaine worth £3,471 were found at Innes Road.

Richard Casella, 43, an unemployed baker and bouncer, of Hophurst Drive, Crawley, was a close friend of Ram and had known him for 25 years.

The jury found him guilty by a majority of nine to one of providing addresses for the cocaine to be delivered to.

The court heard Casella had a reputation in Crawley for being a hardman.

Police believe Ram used him as the "muscle" of the conspiracy.

Casella was an international martial arts champion and has black belts in judo, karate and ju-jitsu.

A former girlfriend described him as a Jekyll and Hyde character with a furious temper.

He had money problems and had run up credit debts of £30,000.

In all, 17 packages of almost pure cocaine were sent to his house at Hophurst Drive, with a street value of £106,000.

Trevor Bowden, 38, of Clive Way, Crawley, was a self-confessed former crack cocaine and heroin addict.

Bowden had known Nathan Chapman-Salas since they worked together on a Horsham building site in 2000.

He said he feared for his life when he was arrested because he thought "some pretty serious people" were involved in the Peru ring.

Cocaine destined for Clive Way was destroyed after it was intercepted in Germany.

Julian Fernandez, 25, was arrested at his home in Railey Road, Northgate, Crawley, in November last year.

He pleaded guilty to his part in the conspiracy in the hope of getting a lighter sentence.

Portuguese-born Fernandez was a student who worked part-time as a waiter at Pizza Express and a tapas bar in Crawley.

Film canisters were found in the kitchen and in his room.

They were packed with cocaine that was 98 per cent pure.

The cocaine destined for Railey Road had a street value of at least £131,800.

Three other people also stood trial.

Businessman Russell Lawrence, 49, was arrested after drugs were delivered to the dry-cleaner's he ran at Maidenbower Place, Crawley.

Paul Casella, 44, of Capricorn Close, Crawley, and Fabio de Palma, 30, of Albany Road, Crawley, were also arrested after being found at addresses where cocaine was delivered.

They all denied involvement in the plot and were found not guilty by the jury.

After the verdicts at Hove Crown Court, Detective Inspector Jez Graves, of Sussex Police, said: "We're extremely pleased with the outcome of this lengthy police operation, which we hope will be a deterrent to criminals who want to 'get rich quick' from other people's misery.

"The additional concern is that these large quantities of cocaine may be converted into the even more socially destructive form of the drug, known as crack."

He praised Detective Sergeant Tony Pike, who spent days on the witness stand explaining how the operation worked and being quizzed by lawyers for each of the defendants.

Case officers Detective Constable Stuart Black and Detective Constable Robinson were also singled out for praise, alongside other officers from Crawley for their support in the operation.