The ‘violent’ Birmingham County Lines drug dealer who flooded town with cocaine and heroin

Birmingham drug dealer,Amani Blagrove-Clarke, and accomplice Manvinder Gill, of no fixed abode ran a county lines heroin and cocaine operation via the railway lines into Loughborough

A county lines drugs operation involving a man from Birmingham flooding a market via a railway line has been busted. Amani Blagrove-Clarke, of Meadow Road, Quinton and Manvinder Gill, of no fixed abode were found to have been running a ‘prolific’ drugs operation across Loughborough.

Gill was stopped by chance at Heathrow Airport for an unrelated matter last month after skipping his sentencing hearing almost a year ago. He initially provided false details.

But upon removing his hood and face mask was recognised by the officer who arrested him on the spot for failing to appear at court for sentencing last November. The drug dealing operation unravelled when the pair were seen at a Bedfordshire train station.

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Blagrove-Clarke, aged 25, was spotted with Gill, by plain clothes officers from British Transport Police’s County Lines task force on Thursday, February 4, 2021 at Bedford Station. They were observed ‘behaving suspiciously’ when the pair saw uniformed officers.

Officers approached them and asked why they were travelling when Covid restrictions in place at the time meant that only ‘essential journeys’ were allowed. Both refused to give their details or divulge their reasons for travelling.

A PNC (police national computer) check revealed that Blagrove-Clarke was wanted for questioning in relation to a separate offence and he was subsequently arrested. The Birmingham man was searched and found to be carrying two mobile phones and around £250 in cash.

During the search, one of the mobiles, a burner phone (an inexpensive phone that can be discarded by its owner), was constantly ringing and Blagrove-Clarke was further arrested under suspicion of being concerned in the supply of class A drugs. Gill who was being questioned by officers separately, became evasive and attempted to walk away.

He was searched and found to be carrying two mobile phones, one of them a burner phone and £250 in cash. Gill claimed the burner phone was not his and that he was carrying it for someone else. He was subsequently also arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of class A drugs.

The phones were examined and messages on them related to the sale of crack cocaine and heroin across Loughborough. Gill pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of crack cocaine and heroin and was sentenced to four years and 10 months in jail at Aylesbury Crown Court on Thursday, October 3 last week.

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He was also ordered to pay a £190 fine. He had failed to attend his original sentencing hearing back in November 2023 and that led to an arrest warrant and his Heathrow stop in September. Blagrove-Clarke was jailed for four years and four months and fined £190 in November last year at the same court. He had pleaded guilty to the same charge.

Investigating officer, PC Frankie Goulding, said: “This was a huge breakthrough in the dismantling of an active drugs line operating in the Loughborough area. Blagrove-Clarke and Gill have a history of violence and drug dealing and they are now no longer able to exploit vulnerable members of society for their own profit.

“Both the travelling public and the wider communities that they operated in are now protected from their prolific offending. This was a complex investigation into County Lines, where both males were regularly using the railway to deal drugs in different areas and I am pleased that the court has seen fit to hand down substantial custodial sentences to the pair.”