A MAN jailed for his role in a drugs cartel benefited by an estimated £108,216 from his illegal activities.

Following a financial investigation into his means, recently released Stewart Burns is no longer believed to have any realisable assets.

Therefore, a nominal £5 confiscation order was made at a proceeds of crime hearing, at Durham Crown Court.

Forty-year-old Burns, formerly of Wheatley Grange Farm, Tow Law, County Durham, was the last of 14 men from across the North to be sentenced as a result of a long-running police inquiry.

Thirteen others were given sentences totalling almost 80 years, but, as Burns fled to Spain when police were closing in on the gang, he remained the last defendant to go before the court.

The former motor dealer and property developer was said to have turned to the drugs trade after the recession hit his business interests.

His counsel, Tony Davis, told the sentencing hearing, at Teesside Crown Court last September that Burns went to work as a timeshare salesman, but returned to the UK when a European arrest warrant was issued.

Jailing him for three years, Judge Howard Crowson told Burns, by then of Winlaton, Gateshead, he was “a guiding hand” in the operation.

Due to time served on curfew and custody, prior to sentence, Burns is understood to have been released from prison in February.