Essex Car Dealer Ben Rowley Sold Cocaine out of Showroom

A secondhand car dealer who used his showroom as a front for a multimillion pound drug network and carried a stun gun disguised as a mobile phone has been jailed for 10 years after being caught with over £4m worth of cocaine.

Ben Rowley, 32, from Hornchurch, Essex, was arrested on the forecourt of Frankie's Car Sales in Hornchurch with just over 6kg of the class A drug following an extensive surveillance operation.

Police recovered 6.2kg of cocaine of between 87 and 93 percent purity - an average batch of cocaine is below 20 percent purity.

Detectives found a pair of digital scales, the stun gun and four .32 calibre bullets when they raided Rowley's home on 2 December, 2011.

The estimated street value of the drugs was between £1m and £4.4m.

Rowley, a father-of-one, pleaded guilty to drugs and firearm offences.

Sentencing at Snaresbrook crown court, Judge Tudor Owen said: "You had a leading role in this conspiracy and, given its very high purity, the cocaine could not have been in the country for very long."

Rowley was found guilty of conspiracy to supply class A drugs, possession of a concealed firearm and possessing ammunition without a firearms certificate.