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A drug boss serving an 11-year prison sentence has asked a judge not to allow police to take his old pick-up truck off him.

Brian Bergamo was second-in-command at the South Wales end of an £18 million gang trafficking cocaine from Liverpool.

He was sent down last September along with the rest of gang and isn’t due to be released until May 2021.

But he came back to court to oppose a move by police to take possession of his 10-year-old Mitsubishi Warrior, saying he would use the vehicle for work once out of prison.

Bergamo was brought to Swansea Crown Court in custody and took to the witness box to argue why he should keep the truck, which police had found cocaine in.

(Image: Dyfed Powys Police) (Image: Daily Record)

He told the court he bought the vehicle as an insurance write-off and fitted new rear springs to it so it could carry heavy loads around the docks in Holland where he works as a hydroblaster stripping paint off ships. He said it was employment which earned him more than £1,500 a week.

He told the court his job would still be available to him upon his release, and if he kept the vehicle he wouldn’t have to buy and modify another one.

The defendant, who was represented by David Singh, said he had no interest in the value of the Warrior and just intended to drive it “until I kill it”.

Bergamo also told the court he was a mechanic and a chef.

Lowri Wynn Morgan, for the prosecution, said police wanted to use the vehicle rather than sell it - but were not able to disclose the use they had in mind.

Judge Paul Thomas QC said that the vehicle had been used in the commission of the drug conspiracy offences and in the circumstances it would not be disproportionate to allow its forfeiture. He granted an order under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

The judge noted that Bergamo seemed “disgruntled” that a car seized from co-conspirator Matthew Roberts had been returned to him - the court heard the car was, in fact, in Roberts’s wife’s name.

The Welsh end of the drugs gang was run by Roberts of Maes Cowny, Llanelli, with Bergamo, of Vera Road in Clydach as his second-in-command.

(Image: Dyfed Powys Police)

Bergamo also ran the gang’s safe house in Clydach – from which police recovered a Samurai sword — and organised the onward supply of cocaine to a network of dealers, as well as attending key meetings of the gang in Liverpool.

Over the course of a year the gang brought huge quantities of high purity cocaine into Wales for supply across Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.

But Dyfed-Powys Police were on to them, tracking more than 30 drug runs between Swansea and Liverpool, placing a bugging device in their Clydach safe house and photographing senior members meeting in a Carmarthenshire cafe.

When officers arrested the gang they seized some 5lbs of the drug.

Roberts and Bergamo both pleaed guilty to conspiracy to supply the Class A drug, and were sentenced to 12 years and 11 years respectively.

The 19-strong gang was sentenced to a total of 169 years in prison.