A Worcester man who imported herbal cannabis from the USA has been ordered to pay back more than £74,000.

Andrew Court, of Nailsworth Close, was convicted of possession with intent to supply Class B Drugs at Worcester Crown Court in September 2021.

In December 2021, the 33-year-old was sentenced to 36 months in prison.

Last week, a Confiscation Order was made at the court under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 - and it was decided that Court had benefited financially from his crimes to the tune of £74,370.

On November 18, Court was ordered to pay the full amount within three months. If he doesn’t, he will be sentenced to a period of three years imprisonment in default of payment.

Detective Inspector Emma Wright, of West Mercia Police’s Economic Crime Unit, said: “This case demonstrates that those who commit serious crimes such as drug supply will be tackled by West Mercia Police and other partner agencies; both by bringing them to justice and by removing the proceeds of the crime.

“This case also represents the first in West Mercia where cryptocurrency has been seized and will now be used to pay off a Confiscation Order.

“Whilst criminals may think they can hide the proceeds of their criminality in virtual currencies, this shows police will locate or trace these and ultimately remove them.”

Police recovered £14,000 cash from drug dealer's home

In December 2018, officers from the UK Border Agency Royal Mail logistics centre identified a suspect package which they believed to contain drugs.

The package, which came from Los Angeles, was addressed to Court at his home in Worcester and the contents were described as a wooden toy set.

It was actually found to contain two heat-sealed clear plastic bags with tins containing 128 grams of herbal cannabis.

In June 2019, arrested Court at his home and seized £14,947.91 cash in two small boxes, 15 ounces of cannabis, deal bags, electronic scales and other drugs paraphernalia, electronic items such as an iPhone and iPad, large quantities of designer footwear, including multiple pairs of assorted training shoes, and Armani and Gucci bags.

They also recovered two bitcoin cash receipts and an A4 size piece of paper containing numbers and a list of 24 seemingly random words.

These were in fact a cryptocurrency recovery seed, which stores all the information required to recover the contents of a cryptocurrency wallet. In this case, the wallet was worth about £10,000.

Court was further arrested in March and April 2020 for unrelated offences and two further amounts of cash - £9,692.18 and £1,125.72 - were seized.