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THE drug deals took place inside homes, in front of kids, on the street, sometimes even in Tamworth shops.
The wheelers and dealers using several phones, covering their tracks, pulling out all the stops to avoid detection.
But it wasn't enough.
It took hours of physical surveillance and months of trawling through thousands of phone intercepts of numerous phones but some of Tamworth's specialist drug detectives brought down a major drug trafficking ring, stopping the flood of ice, amphetamines, MDMA and oxycontin onto Tamworth streets.
Strike Force Jenning gave police extra surveillance powers as they homed in on suspects like Justin Anthony Heywood, Trent Reid and Peter Green.
The net soon widened and so too the targets, and detectives started hunting Michael Gary Sadler, Adrian James Boucher, Cinthia Reid, wife to Trent, and her aunty Mary Reid, Jermane Jackson and Mark Parker.
The operation, set up in 2013 by Oxley detectives, only took three months before police unravelled the "haphazard" drug supply chain, culminating in simultaneous raids on several properties.
At the time of the arrest, the Oxley Acting Superintendent Jeff Budd didn't mince he words.
"We are sending a message to the druggies in our town: we're coming after you," he told the media after several arrest.
Already thousands of dollars had exchanged hands, and several drugs deals had been done, but police struck just before Christmas in 2013, executing several arrests as they ticked the names of their targets off.
A coordinated strike on the target's homes discovered ice in pillowcases, and in cars, MDMA tablets hidden away, amphetamines stashed away with a taser in a golf bag, an air rifle in a cupboard and drug paraphernalia, phones, drug record books and other paraphernalia littered through the homes.
Sadler had "ready recourse" to his weapons the crown argued, placing them in his bedroom in case his dealing turned sour.
The 30-year-od had 127.48g of amphetamines in his Tamworth home as well as 24.65g of ice hidden away and 36g of MDMA in tablets.
"It is a significant amount of drugs," Judge John North said in sentencing the 30-year-old on Thursday.
"Dealing in the amounts he was...supplying in the Tamworth area, he was never going to remain anonymous.
"His involvement showed no real organisation or planning."
Sadler on-sold his drugs to Heywood, just one link in the supply chain uncovered in the Jenning operation.
There were 6,222 activations on Heywood's three phones as police sifted through the drug transactions, decoding language to decipher the deals.
"He used some sort of coded language but it wasn't sophisticated at all," Barrister Elizabeth McLaughlin said of her client.
He was a principle person of interest in the operation, as police tallied 33 customers he supplied drugs to, culminating in his admission to supplying on an ongoing basis - a charge which carries 20 years in prison.
"It is clear this offender must have been involved in a greater supply than whet he is charged with...he was as they say 'running hot'," Judge North said handing down his sentence yesterday morning ((FRI)).
"He even persisted after being stopped by police."
Judge North went so far as to call it the "most stupid thing [Heywood's] done in his life" after turning to drugs when quitting his turner and fitter job in 2013.
He, like many others caught in the police trap, were caught in a dangerous cycle, feeding their drug addictions, further fuelling their offending behaviour.
In the case of Peter Green, Judge Peter Whitford found he was hard working by day as a brickies labourer but his secret role, supplying drugs on the side in "a haphazard enterprise" which spelt the end.
"[He] appears to have succumbed to the insidious grip of methylamphetamine," Judge Whitford told the court last September.
The last remaining person charged under Strike Force Jenning remains before the court.
Police will allege Samone Hall knowingly took part in the supply of drugs, charged with two offences.
She remains on conditional bail and will stand trial in Tamworth District Court in April.