Man jailed for role in violent gang selling Class A drugs in Mansfield

Police raided two safe houses on Wyton Close, Bestwood, Nottingham, where they uncovered £85,000 of drugs and ‘an arsenal of knives, machetes and batons’, after gang leader Akeem Chand shot a member of a rival gang in the neck, in May 2019.

Kiefer Smith, aged 28, formerly of Dallman Close, Hucknall, was convicted of conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life and conspiracy to possess ammunition, along with four other men, by a jury in October.

He previously admitted conspiring to supply class A and class B drugs.

Judge John Sampson said the gang was a ‘sophisticated organised crime group’ responsible for three shootings and ‘three more committed in revenge’ by their rivals, as well as ‘large scale drug dealing’ between July 2018 and May 2019.

He said: “They possessed an array of weapons, including firearms and ammunition, and all were willingly involved in planning shootings.”

Wealth

Chand, who received a life sentence in October, ‘was at the heart of every firearms incident’, and “boasted of making £16,000 profits per month by dealing out misery to the drug addicts of Mansfield, Sutton, Kirkby and Nottingham’.

The court heard ‘Chand and his inner circle revelled in their criminal lifestyle’, and he ‘flaunted his wealth with holidays in Cancun’ and buying jewellery from Hatton Garden.

Smith, described as a ‘busy dealer of heroin and cocaine’, was on ‘high alert for rivals’ after one revenge shooting, and ‘rode around in possession of a firearm’.

He received eight months in prison for smuggling cannabis into HMP Nottingham, when visiting Chand, and has previous convictions for offensive weapons and drugs, but he was not directly involved in the shootings.

Laurie-Ann Power, for Smith, asked for a sentence which would ‘allow him to come out of custody and make something of this life and raise his young children’.

She said, although he was responsible for ‘street-level dealing’, he only acted on instructions, and ‘made no extravagant purchases because he was in significant debt’.

Sentencing him to 17 years in jail today, Judge Sampson said Smith will serve two thirds of the sentence before he is released.

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