A GANGSTER’S moll drove her boyfriend between Newport and Liverpool as he ferried heroin and cash between the two cities as a member of a £16 million drugs operation.
Emma Sweet was also made to chauffeur Ryan Gifford on trafficking and cash delivery runs to Gloucester, Plymouth and Hartlepool because he didn’t have a driving licence.
The partners in crime were caught with £230,000 of heroin when their car was stopped by police near the Coldra roundabout in Newport.
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Ryan Gifford, 37, of Crouch Close, Newport, was among 20 men jailed for more than 150 years last October for their role in the UK-wide gang that flooded towns and cities with the class A drug.
They were brought to justice after a nine-month police operation, codenamed Operation Jackdaw 2, carried out by Tarian, the regional organised crime unit, supported by Gwent Police and South Wales Police.
(Ryan Gifford, right, was among 10 Newport men sent to prison.)
Gifford was sent to prison for eight years after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin.
Sweet admitted the same offence this week at Cardiff Crown Court and became the last member of the gang to be sentenced.
Andrew Jones, prosecuting, said: “This defendant played a discreet and narrow role in the gang. She was the partner of Ryan Gifford who was a courier.
“He didn’t have a driving licence and she would take him around the Newport area and beyond.”
He told the court that when Gifford and Sweet were stopped in July 2018, they were on a return trip from Liverpool and had 2.5kg of heroin in their car which they were due to drop off in Newport.
Mr Jones said that through their arrests, detectives were able to link them to other defendants further up the chain.
Sweet, who was represented by Alexandra Scott, had spent nearly a year remanded in custody.
Judge Richard Williams told her: “You were put in a position by Ryan Gifford that you found impossible to resist. What you did was because he was making you do it.”
Sweet, of Howard Drive, Caerphilly, was jailed for 162 days, suspended for six months.
She must also pay a victim surcharge of £115.
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