Mr Big of drugs to pay back £1m haul

Apr 9 2008 by Sam Wonfor, The Journal

AN international drug dealer who indulged his taste for high living has been ordered to pay back almost £1m in assets in the biggest confiscation order ever secured by Northumbria Police.

Mark Cadogan used the proceeds from his wholesale cannabis supply business to fund exotic holidays, a string of properties and luxury cars including a £130,000 Aston Martin and a BMW convertible.

He was caught after an 18-month investigation which uncovered his national and international drug supply networks and links with other crime groups both at home and abroad.

Yesterday at Newcastle Crown Court, Cadogan, also known as Mark Longhurst, was jailed for 10 years after admitting conspiracy to supply cannabis and conspiracy to launder money between 2004 and 2007.

He was found to have benefited from crime to the tune of more than £1.35m and ordered to surrender realisable assets of £923,757 within six months.

Cadogan, 45, of Cotter Riggs Place, Chapel House, Newcastle, was also made the subject of an eight-year travel restriction order which will come into force on his release from prison.

Judge Beatrice Bolton told him: “The prosecution describe you as a Mr Big, a big-time dealer in cannabis. I have to say I agree with that assessment.”

Cadogan, a one-time tennis coach in Las Vegas, travelled abroad more than 20 times during the period of the conspiracy, even setting up bank accounts in Armenia. He was arrested in March 2007 after a Northumbria Police Crime Operations inquiry.

Six other men arrested in the same operation are to be sentenced at a later date after admitting the two conspiracy counts.

They are Lee Coyle, 31, of Lily Terrace, Westerhope; Christopher Coyle, 56, of Burnstones, West Denton; Alan Tannahill, 37, of Greenlaw, West Denton, all Newcastle; Timothy Lister, 33, of Holly Hill Gardens, South Stanley, County Durham; Anthony Hutchinson, 39, of Bewick Park, Wallsend; and Malcolm Underwood, 55, of Lincroft Terrace, Bramley, Leeds.

Also to be sentenced is Cadogan’s partner Melanie Main, also known as McElderry, 29, of Cotter Riggs Place, Chapel House, who admitted an offence of money laundering.

Jonathan Goldberg, QC, defending, told the court Cadogan should be given credit for his guilty plea which avoided the necessity of a trial which could have lasted up to six months.