A cocaine dealer kept part of her stash of the drug hidden in a fake soup tin in her house. Police recovered cocaine worth more than £6,000 along with an “invoice book” of customers when they searched 58-year-old Tracey Crew’s home.
Swansea Crown Court heard Crew was on a suspended sentence for dealing cannabis when she began dealing the Class A drug. The defendant’s barrister said the court may be wondering why a woman of his client’s age was involving herself in drug supply and said the reason was simple – to fund her own drug use.
Caitlin Brazel, prosecuting, told the court that on November 29 last year police attended at the defendant’s house in Port Talbot to execute a search warrant under the Misuse of Drugs Act. She said when told why the officers were at her door Crew directed them to a carrier bag containing cocaine. A search of the property turned up a total of 122g of cocaine in a variety of bags of various weights from half-gram deals up to two ounces, some of which were hidden inside a fake soup can. The court heard the cocaine was worth up to £6,200.
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Officers also found an “invoice book” containing lists of names and amounts owed along with bundles of bank notes, some wrapped in cling film, totalling more than £7,500. The court heard that in an upstairs bedroom officers found three cannabis plants growing and they also recovered 1g of cannabis from another room. For the latest court reports, sign up to our crime newsletter here
Tracey Crew, of Ysgythan Road, Port Talbot, had previously pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply, possession of criminal property – namely cash – as well as cultivating cannabis and the simple possession of cannabis when she appeared in the dock for sentencing. She has six previous convictions for nine offences including allowing premises to be used for the supplying of cannabis from 2018 and possession of cannabis with intent to supply and being concerned in the supply of cannabis from December 2023 for which she was given a suspended sentence. Crew was still subject to that sentence when she began dealing cocaine.
Andrew Evans, for Crew, said his client had been dealing in order to fund her own drug use. He said a quantity of cocaine had been seized from the defendant’s house and his client would “have to deal with losing drugs which belong to others” when she is eventually released from custody.
With one-third discounts for her guilty pleas Judge Geraint Walters sentenced Crew to three years in prison comprising three years for the cocaine supply offence and six months for each of possession of criminal property and growing cannabis counts all to run concurrently. No separate penalty was imposed for the simple possession of cannabis. The judge activated 12 months of the previously-imposed 16-month suspended sentence and ordered it to run consecutively making an overall sentence of four years in prison. Crew will serve up to half the four years in prison before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
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