THE final member of a Bradford-based drugs gang involved in a multi-million pounds conspiracy was yesterday locked up.

Stuart Horsfield, 46, who went on the run in Europe for four years, was jailed for four years and four months at Leeds Crown Court after he admitted conspiracy to supply Class A drugs between February 16 and July 8, 2010.

It brought the total jail sentences for the gang to 175 years.

Seventeen men have received prison sentences ranging from 18 years to three and a half years after Operation Stet, an investigation by West Yorkshire Police, working with Greater Manchester Police and the Dutch National Drugs Unit, into the supply and importation of class A drugs into Bradford and across the north of England, money laundering and firearms offences.

During the operation, police seized class A drugs with a street value of more than £10 million.

Ringleader Mohammed Shaukat, 37, of Allerton Road, Allerton, Bradford, was previously jailed for 18 years, while his operations manager Abuhassan Rehman, 30, of Peckover Drive, Pudsey, who co-ordinated the purchase and supply of heroin and cocaine for the gang, was imprisoned for ten and a half years.

Horsfield was arrested in July 2010, after he was seen taking a rucksack into an address where more than £110,000 in drug-contaminated cash was recovered.

Police searched his home and recovered nearly half a kilogramme of cocaine and a small amount of heroin with a total street value of more than £20,000 as well as scales and gloves and £3,000 in cash.

He was interviewed and bailed, but failed to answer his bail in October 2010.

He was finally arrested last November in Eindhoven, Holland after being found in possession of a forged Italian passport.

The Dutch authorities notified West Yorkshire Police of his arrest and detained him under the authority of the European arrest warrant.

Horsfield, of Sandringham Road, Doncaster, was returned to the UK, under international agreements, by West Yorkshire Police officers, in January and was remanded in custody by Leeds magistrates.

Jailing him yesterday, Judge Jacqueline Davies said she accepted he was a courier and that others were higher up the chain but his “determined absence” from the country was an aggravating feature of his case.

After the case, Detective Inspector Philip Little, of West Yorkshire Police's Serious and Organised Crime Unit, said: “Operation Stet was a highly successful investigation in which more than £10 million of drugs were seized and organised criminal networks were systematically dismantled.

"We would like to thank our local and international partners in the Crown Prosecution Service and Dutch police who have helped to show that we will never cease searching for those who attempt to evade justice.”