A DEALER who helped run a £500,000 cocaine gang from a Church of England owned house in Ide has been stripped of his ill-gotten gains.

Former Thai boxing champion Jake Purdy acted as right hand man to his father Lester and hid drugs and money in country lanes near the Teignbridge village.

The 26-year-old, of Station Road, Ide, was jailed for three years and four months at Exeter Crown Court in November 2020 after he admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine.

He has now been ordered to hand over almost all of the £100,000 he made from drug dealing or face a further two years in jail.

The assets include a large collection of designer clothes and a Tag Heuer watch.

Judge David Evans certified that Jake Purdy had profited £101,362.86 from his criminal lifestyle and that his available assets were £90,167.48. He ordered him to pay the money within three months or serve two years in jail.

Mr Nigel Wraith, prosecuting, said the figures had been agreed and the money will be raised mostly by the sale of assets currently held by the police.

Similar proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act are continuing against Lester Purdy, Lester Purdy, aged 68, also of Station Road, Ide, and Julian Eslick, aged 47, of Cliff Bastin Close, Exeter, who also admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine, and Trevor Forbes, aged 59, of Brasenose Driftway, Oxford, admitted conspiracy to transfer criminal property.

They were all jailed at the same time as Jake Purdy.

The gang were caught because villagers reported suspicious activity in Ide during the first lockdown in 2020.

Neighbours tipped off the police about cars visiting the former vicarage and seeing Purdy’s son walking to nearby woodland which was being used as a hiding place for huge stashes of cocaine.

The gang also used an outbuilding at nearby Stevens Farm to store cocaine which they diluted to increase their profits and packaged to look as if it was still top quality gear.

Purdy kept deactivated weapons to guard his home and installed high tech tracking devices in his vehicles so he and his son would know if they were ever intercepted by police.

One of the first things that attracted the notice of villagers was an elaborate system of security cameras which sent images straight to his laptop and may have provided police with evidence if he had not wiped the hard drive just before he was raided in May.

His son was watched by officers as he buried two kilograms of cocaine in woods behind Ide, where the caches were marked with piles of stones or intertwined branches.

The drugs were delivered by a courier from Oxfordshire who was intercepted at Exeter Services on his way home with £75,000 cash he had just picked up.

Purdy and his son used local drug dealer Eslick to sell at least £160,000 of cocaine in and around Exeter, roughly half of which was paid into their joint account by bank transfer.

They used a lockup in Water Lane in the centre of Exeter as a workshop to cut and re-press the cocaine using a hydraulic press. The adulterated it with a cutting agent to reduce its purity from 90 to 70 per cent.

The two Purdys set up the supply business while living in Water Lane, Exeter, before moving to Ide in March in March 2020.

There were regular visits from Eslick’s white Mercedes and the array of cameras at the house also raised eyebrows with locals.

Jake Purdy became aware that villagers were watching the operation and sent messages encouraging Eslick to be more careful.

Police saw Jake Purdy meet Forbes on May 11, 2020, and direct his car to the large consignment of drugs which he buried in the woods. They were found to be almost exactly two kilograms.

The courier Forbes was stopped on his way home with £75,000 cash in a bag in the passenger footwell. Lester Purdy was found with £4,000 cash and a quarter of a kilo of cocaine at the house.