A 44-YEAR-OLD who hid a Sainsbury’s bag in his car door filled with a substance that could have made £151,000 of cocaine has been jailed.

Darren Cossavella was offered £100 to transport the bag, which was filled with a two-kilogram mixture of caffeine and paracetamol.

He was pulled over by police on the A19 near Yarm on November 29 last year, Teesside Crown Court heard.

They searched the car after smelling cannabis and found the substance – known colloquially as "bash" - alongside an unsmoked cannabis joint, which was hidden in his interior mirror.

David Crook, prosecuting, said that "bash" was commonly used by dealers to add to street deals of heroine and cocaine.

“The £151,000 is a very rough assessment to the court. That is what the two kilograms could be used to produce,” he added.

Duncan McReddie, defending, said: “He accepts that he was doing it for financial gain.

“But he could not make the leap to place himself into the conspiracy.”

Judge Peter Armstrong said: “It is not unlawful to be in the possession of caffeine or paracetamol. What is illegal is your knowledge that it was to be used to make cocaine.

“Either way it seems to me that although you were doing this for money, I think it is possible to categorise you has having a lesser role in the conspiracy.”

Cossavella, of Mellor Street, Stockton, received two years for conspiracy to supply cocaine and eight months, to run concurrently, for supplying cannabis.