This is Gloucestershire --A RELENTLESS man hunt ended yesterday when the final offender of a Cheltenham drugs ring was jailed for eight years.
Vanja Crepuljar was the "last piece of the jigsaw" for Gloucestershire police, who tracked him down to Sicily in a bid to bring him to justice.
The 34-year-old was part of an Eastern European gang supplying thousands of pounds worth of cocaine to Cheltenham and the remaining area of Gloucestershire.
Crepuljar was visiting his mother in Belgrade in July 2011 when more than 100 officers raided addresses in Cheltenham, Staverton, Bristol and London after a year of surveillance.
And, despite him remaining outside the UK, having aliases and moving house and country within the past two years, officers finally bought Crepuljar back to the UK on February 14.
He awaited his day in court, and was yesterday jailed at Bristol Crown Court for eight years after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Fourteen people have now been sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for being part of the gang that ferried drugs between Gloucestershire and the capital.
They included amateur racing driver Laurence Kilby, 40, of Lypiatt Lane in Cheltenham, who was jailed for 18 years last August; David Chapman, 29, of Rissington Road, Bourton-on-the-Water, who got nine years and William Garnier, 31, of London Road, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, who got six years and eight months in prison.
Serbian Crepuljar was living in Maida Vale in London at the time of his offences, claiming to be a Bulgarian national called Aleksander Gospodinov, and was seen to meet the Cheltenham contingent five times between October and November 2010.
Officers tracked him down to Modica, Sicily, where he had just moved and married and began extradition procedures in September 2012.
Detective Chief Inspector Steve Bean said: "This was a huge criminal enterprise involving some very unpleasant and arrogant characters who thought they were above the law. The combination of arrogance and greed from the main players meant that they hadn't really thought it through properly.
"During the trial Kilby described Crepuljar's alias as being a 'rich oligarch' type figure. In reality Crepuljar was just the crook supplying Kilby with drugs to blight our streets and line the pockets of a shameless few." Reported by This is 8 hours ago.