Two Farningham dealers have been sentenced after drugs with a street value of between £28,050 and £56,100 were found at a farm.

George Powell, 40, of London Road, Farningham, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison while 31-year-old Kirby Osborne, also of London Road, Farningham, was sentenced to 12 months in jail suspended for two years.

Both were charged with conspiracy to supply amphetamines and found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court on Tuesday.

On Monday, August 15 last year, officers from Kent and Essex’s Serious Crime Directorate were searching a farm premises on London Road, Farningham, when they found items they suspected to be connected to the supply of controlled drugs.

They called for a drugs dog and the animal directed police to a cool-box and two cardboard boxes inside a locked cabin.

They discovered 3.8kg of white paste in the cool-box which was later shown to be amphetamine mixed with caffeine, with a street value of between £28,050 and £56,100.

Caffeine powder is often used as a cutting agent for controlled drugs and the cardboard boxes were found to contain 15 kilogrammes of the powder stored in plastic bags along with a spoon and a plastic jug coated in traces of caffeine and amphetamine, a police spokesman said.

Officers also found an open plastic bag containing caffeine and some scales with traces of caffeine and amphetamine inside the cab of a truck on the site.

Powell lived at an address near to where the amphetamine was seized and his fingerprints were subsequently found on a bag containing caffeine.

Osborne also lived near to where the seizures were made. Enquiries made by investigators with the supplier of the caffeine revealed that it had been bought for £1,050 using a bank transfer from Kirby Osborne’s account.

The bank had been notified by Osborne that the payment was for ‘chicken feed’, thus disguising the fact that a potential cutting agent had been bought in large quantities.

Powell was already serving a custodial sentence on an unrelated charge and will serve this additional sentence consecutively.

Investigating officer, Detective Sergeant Richard Spicer of Kent and Essex’s Serious Crime Directorate said: "Powell and Osbourne were running a large scale drugs operation and thought they could get away with it but thanks to excellent work by one of our drugs dogs they were stopped in their tracks and bought to justice.

"They had no regard for the damage these drugs would cause to hundreds of people and their families, and were only concerned about making as much money as possible and I’m pleased that Powell has received a significant sentence for his part in this crime."