A POLICE operation has led to nine people - some from Lowestoft and others with links to the town - admitting their part in a major drugs ring.

Among those caught is an up-and-coming boxer from Ipswich, with Lowestoft links, who is now waiting to learn his fate after he was part of an organised gang ferrying consignments of drugs worth hundreds of thousands of pounds from Liverpool to Suffolk in a nine-month period from September 21, 2010 to June 7, 2011.

The 26-year-old super-middleweight, Henry Bacon, of Woodlands Way, Ipswich, pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court to possession with intent to supply Class A drugs, along with eight others.

Caroline Murphy, 22, of Mercer Drive, Liverpool, pleaded guilty to conceal, disguise, convert, transfer and remove criminal property.

Michael Kynaston, 30, of Edgerton Road in Lowestoft, Johnathan McKenna, 25, of Norwich Road, Norwich, Andrew Roberts, 30, of Keats Avenue, Wigan, Wesley Gale, 27, of Belle Green Lane in Wigan and Stephen Palmer, 44, of Wisset Way, Lowestoft all admitted conspiring to supply Class A drugs.

Steven Jackson, 45, of Old Nelson Street, Lowestoft, pleaded guilty to two counts of supplying controlled drug of Class B and two counts of possession with intent to supply a Class B drug. Marie Darwin, 50, of Melverley Road in Liverpool, pleaded guilty to permitting premises to be used for supplying Class A drugs.

Officers from Suffolk police worked with their counterparts on Merseyside to break-up the supply chain. Premises in north Suffolk were allegedly used for the cutting and packaging of the drugs. A garage in Lowestoft rented by McKenna and Kynaston was one and there was another unit in Beccles and a rented property in Wrentham.

Large industrial presses were recovered from the garage which had traces of cocaine and mixing agents on them.

Although the garage did dabble in cars, it was rented as a front for the drug business.

A courier would bring the drugs down to Suffolk, where they would be broken up, pressed again to reflect importation quality and to maximise the profits, by splitting the cocaine up before distribution.

McKenna was the drug's ring's top dog with his lieutenants Kynaston – well known in the criminal fraternity in Lowestoft, and Jackson.

The nine people are due to be sentenced on September 5.