SENTENCING of five members of a gang who plotted to supply drugs in Flintshire has now been completed.

Lawton Griffiths, 21, of Ryecote, Kirkby, Liverpool, was jailed for three years and seven months.

Helen Deponeo, 51, from Holywell, was jailed for three years. She was said to be free of drugs now.

James Halewood, 20, of Sennen Road, Kirkby, was sent to custody for two years and seven months.

And a boy of 17 from Liverpool received a 12-month detention and training order.

And Russell Cole-Jones, 39, of no fixed address, has been jailed for three years and four months.

All pleaded guilty at Caernarfon Crown Court to involvement in a conspiracy, apart from Deponeo who was convicted by a jury.

Det Insp Mark Hughes, of North Wales Police, said: “Sentences totalling 13-and-a-half years have now been handed down to members of a Merseyside organised crime gang supplying illegal drugs into Mold.

“This investigation was part of an ongoing effort under our Operation Scorpion county lines led policing strategy to disrupt the supply of illegal drugs into North Wales and to bring the criminals behind this trade to justice.

“The sentencings will see five more drug offenders off our streets and it sends a clear message to those bringing drugs into our area that North Wales Police will put them before the courts and, like Halewood, Griffiths, Deponeo, Cole-Jones and a youth we can’t name for legal reasons, they are likely to end up behind bars.”