SIX defendants are on trial accused of being members of a “sophisticated” organised crime gang who sold nearly £2 million of cocaine on the streets of Newport.

Jerome Nunes, aged 28, of Livingstone Place, Blane Nunes, 26, Angela Collingbourne, 51, both of Jenkins Street, Tia Donovan-Jones, aged 18, of Brookfield Close, Jonathan James, 29, of Ringland, Newport, and Khaleem Hussain, 24, of Fleetwood Close, all in the city, deny conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

Prosecutor Andrew Jones told a Newport Crown Court jury the gang was a “family-run business” led by convicted drug dealer Jerome Nunes at the top and that his mother Angela Collingbourne and brother Blane Nunes were part of its “management team”.

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He claimed their alleged empire was run from a garage business in the city called NP19 Tyres and they used a mobile phone telephone hotline to sell drugs, had a caravan and several rural "stash locations" in the Goldcliffe area of the city to store cocaine and how deliveries were captured in audio recordings.

Mr Jones told the jury how they will hear that the Nunes brothers will claim they were acting under “duress – that they feared for their safety or that of their loved ones and unless they did as directed, those threats would be carried out by an Albanian drug cartel”.

In opening the case, he said: “This trial focusses on the activities of a Newport-based organised crime group (OCG) involved in the widespread supply of cocaine.

“This OCG controls a significant proportion of the Newport drugs trade. It is a sophisticated organised group operating covertly and executing their criminal enterprise with precision.

“It could be said that this is a family run business – three of these defendants on trial before you are from the same family and those three are at the heart of this drug dealing enterprise.

“Those who feature in this enterprise are involved in a number of ways, ranging from the top to the bottom of the organisation.”

He continued: “From couriers and dealers moving quantities around the streets of Newport in the early hours of the morning; to those who are responsible for the larger amount wholesale distribution and storage of controlled drugs; through to those at the very top of the network who rarely get their hands dirty and are largely responsible, through their network of associates, for the movement and sale of mass quantities of class A drugs.

“Cocaine is the drug of choice for these drug dealers.”

Mr Jones said the alleged conspiracy covers a timeframe of almost two years.

On the basis of calculations done from conversations recorded, he added, the prosecution claim that it equates to between £1.7 million and £1.9 million of cocaine being sold – or in volume, somewhere between 17.21kg to 19.65kg.

He told the jury: “Quite simply a staggering amount of drugs sold onto the streets of Newport by this group.”

Mr Jones said that the “command headquarters” of the gang was NP19 with “vast sums of money being brought into the office and counted by the Nunes family”.

He told the court: “Jerome Nunes is the head of the OCG and the controller of a significant supply and distribution network for class A drugs.

“He is a convicted drug dealer currently in prison for an offence of possessing cocaine with intent to supply.

“You will hear that the facts of that relate to an offence committed on August 8, 2016 and that involved cocaine being thrown from the passenger window of a car.”

He added: “Jerome Nunes controls the activities of this OCG throughout his time in custody by the use of an extensive network of illicit mobile telephones, orchestrating the trade of cocaine and giving instructions to members of his organisation. He directs operations.

“Sitting very closely alongside Jerome Nunes in the running of this business is his mother Angela Collingbourne.

“She is responsible for the management of the OCG funds and facilitates and maintains control of the main source of trading, the mobile telephone line.

“The final member of the management team on trial before you is Blane Nunes. He is in effect the operations manager, overseeing the daily running of the lucrative ‘389 number’ line.

“He also oversees the storage and preparation of the drugs and you will see that he attends at the various stash points and the caravan.”

Proceeding.