A driving instructor turned Breaking Bad-style drugs baron has been jailed for six years after being caught with £5 MILLION worth of cocaine and amphetamines he planned to sell in order to save his family home.
Benjamin Holloway, 26, turned to drug dealing in order to raise £20,000 to stop his property from being sold after plunging into debt when his business went under.
Birmingham Crown Court heard the “hard-working” instructor became increasingly desperate to financially provide for his family and became mixed up with dangerous drugs gangs.
He was arrested by police who pulled over his vehicle in a routine stop-check in Birmingham on August 14 and discovered a huge haul of cocaine and amphetamines.
Officers then swooped on the defendant’s £130,000 home in Redditch, Worcs., and found more than FIFTY kilos of amphetamine in his garden shed.
Police also recovered a number of boxes containing heating trays along with five phones which had been used to make calls to Spain and Holland.
On December 16 Holloway pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine and amphetamine and was jailed for six years.
Sentencing Judge Roderick Henderson said: “You are a hard worker who had never been in trouble with police before but you became involved in desperately serious offences.
“You were more than just a courier and had played a significant role in the conspiracy.”
The court heard officer’s suspicions were aroused when they saw Holloway desperately fiddling with a sports bag after pulling him over in Birmingham city centre.
Prosecuting Christopher Lester said: “Police carried out a stop-check on Holloway’s Ford Focus at Paradise Circus.
“Their suspicions were aroused when they saw him fiddling with a sports bag.
“When officers searched the bag they found three packages containing cocaine of a high purity.”
Police found Holloway- who qualified as an instructor five years ago – had “betrayed wealth” and had two flat-screen TVs and a baby grand piano in his modest semi-detached home.
Defending, Imran Shafi said others higher up in the chain had used Holloway and that he had succumbed to temptation.
After the case driving instructor Donna Scott, from the Redditch School of Motoring, said Holloway had used her company name to promote his own business RSM.
She said: “He appeared a bit of a wide boy but I never thought he was able to get mixed up anything like this.
“I think he lived with his mum and dad and as far I knew he was still trading .
“I knew him to say hello to at the driving centre and wasn’t too sure about him because he used to drive like an idiot, which wasn’t good for the learners.
“He used the initials RSM and called himself the Redditch School of Motoring but I had my business five years before that – but I just didn’t want to get involved in a lengthy legal battle.”
Holloway’s case echoes the plot of smash US TV show crime drama Breaking Bad, in which a respectable chemistry teacher turns to drug dealing to provide for his family after learning he had terminal cancer.
The flawed lecturer, played by Bryan Cranston, sets up crystal meths labs to make quick cash, enlisting the help of an ex-student.
The programme follows his dramatic transformation from a family man to a kingpin of the drug trade.
