Drugs gang member jailed over role at industrial scale amphetamine factory in Scotland

The final member of an organised crime group that ran an amphetamine factory in Scotland has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years.

Stanley Feerick, 68, from Liverpool, was arrested in November 2020 after being stopped while driving a lorry containing 2.9 kilos of heroin, worth £300,000, and tens of thousands of pounds in cash.

The following month, more than 560 kilos of alpha-phenylacetoacetamide (APAA), a substance used in the production of amphetamine, was found in a lorry that National Crime Agency (NCA) investigators discovered had been loaded on the orders of Feerick.

That amount of APAA could have produced amphetamine worth around £1.1m. A search of Feerick’s home led to the recovery of another £9,370 in cash.

The group that operated the factory in Scotland trafficked heroin and cocaine across the whole UK.

Thursday’s sentencing at Liverpool Crown Court followed those of group ringleader Terence Earle and three other accomplices, Stephen Singleton, Lee Baxter and Stephen King, in April 2023.

NCA Branch Commander Richie Davies said: “Today’s sentencing marks the complete dismantling of a crime group that operated from the north of England to Scotland, and sought to make huge profits from a trade that fuels violence and exploitation.

“The NCA continued to work to protect the public from the highest risk criminals impacting on the UK.”