A MASSIVE million pound drug dealing operation has been smashed by police after a six-month investigation.

At Manchester Crown Court 31-year-old mastermind James Close, of Cloisters Avenue, Leigh, was jailed for 13 years and nine months after admitting conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to supply cocaine.

Thirteen other men, mainly from Leigh, were also jailed for related offences.

Det Supt Jason Hudson, head of operations at Titan, the police's northwest regional crime unit, said: “James Close was effectively the patriarch of a crime gang involved in criminality that spanned dirty cash, drugs and firearms.

“These men and their associates are involved in crime for the sole purpose of making money, so to hit them so hard and so deep in the pocket by recovering £1.2 million - that we believe to have been amassed entirely through their criminal enterprises - is a massive result.”