Courts outwith Moray:- Gangland boss Ryan Ferguson buried drugs in woodlands
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A gangland boss from the North of Scotland had been jailed for hiding huge amounts of drugs in secret woodland "stash sites".
Ryan Ferguson was sent to prison for five years and eight months earlier today after admitting supplying cocaine, cannabis and benzocaine.
The 30-year-old from Inverness had already pleaded guilty at a hearing last month to being involved in serious organised crime between June 2019 and September 2021.
The High Court in Glasgow heard how Ferguson arranged drugs and large sums of cash to be delivered the north of Scotland.
He identified a number of rural spots to hide the drugs and ordered members of his gang to bury them.
The total value of the drugs was later put at £492,000.
Ferguson's illicit scheme unravelled when police intercepted phone conversations on an encrypted EncroChat device.
Those discussions with other gangland figures in the north east of England and Glasgow revealed the scope of the operation.
In one exchange Ferguson arranged a £75,000 payment to a courier as part of a drugs handover in a factory car park.
The court heard that Ferguson, who has previous convictions for drug-related offences, was released from prison in June 2019.
Within weeks, however, he had returned to a life of crime – using at least 29 mobile phones when he was forbidden to own more than one.
In June 2020, £142,098 of high purity cocaine was found hidden under moss in woods in the Highlands.
A further drugs haul worth £350,000 was discovered after two men linked to Ferguson were stopped in separate raids.
Ferguson was arrested at Glasgow Airport in June last year after arriving back from a holiday in Thailand with his partner.
Laura Buchan, Procurator Fiscal for Specialist Casework, welcomed the sentence.
She said: "This was a coordinated effort to bring significant quantities of illegal and harmful drugs to the north of Scotland.
"Ryan Ferguson is now serving a prison sentence as a result of an extensive police operation."
