Lake District: Gary Gittins admits role in £53m cocaine supply plot

Gary Gittins, 42, appeared at Carlisle Crown Court on Wednesday.

During a short hearing in front of Judge Nicholas Barker, Gittins pleaded guilty to conspiring with numerous other people to supply cocaine between March 1 2022 and late May last year.

Earlier this year, nine men were handed jail sentences totalling more than 106 years for their involvement in an illegal enterprise which is said to be one of the UK’s biggest ever.

Some of the seized drugs (Image: Cumbria Police)

Four others — including Gittins and former Polish Love Island contestant Magdalena Sadlo, 29, — are now due to be sentenced by Judge Barker later this year.

The court has heard how vast quantities of cocaine were imported into the UK, warehoused and then distributed to towns and cities nationwide by organised crime group (OCG) members seeking to rake in vast profits.

Police rounded up suspects after 1kg of cocaine was seized last February in Bowness-on-Windermere where stashes had been stored in a lock-up by Cumbrian “regional retailer” Reece Barnes.

The drugs operation was stopped after Reece Barnes was found with a lock-up full of drugs in Bowness (Image: North West Regional Organised Crime Unit)

Police made arrests and seized phones which revealed the true scale of a criminal conspiracy, said to be one of the UK’s largest ever, and described by prosecutor Tim Evans as “truly-massive” and “Amazon-style”.

Gittins played the part of a warehouseman while Sadlo was a courier detained by police and then brought to court after arriving at Heathrow on a flight from the Middle East.

Gittins, of Woodland Avenue, Hindley Green, near Atherton, also admitted a second charge of possessing class B drug cannabis with intent to supply on May 11 2023. He has been remanded in custody ahead of the sentencing hearing, which has a provisional listing date of October 11.