BY OUR CRIME REPORTER
A BRAZEN drug kingpin who funded a champagne lifestyle of luxury global holidays while moving millions in “dirty money” has been caged for 12 years.
Samuel De Vere-Hunt, 30, was nabbed by undercover cops as he tried to stroll out of his Essex home carrying a staggering £160,000 in cash stuffed into a carrier bag and boxes.
The 30-year-old “Modernfeet” dealer—who was officially unemployed—was the mastermind behind a massive £12 million criminal enterprise that flooded London’s streets with MDMA, ketamine, and cannabis.
High Life on a Low Wage
While his girlfriend, Rosie Wise, 25, worked as a receptionist on just £13 an hour, the pair lived like A-list celebrities.
Detectives revealed the couple enjoyed a string of extravagant getaways to Ibiza, Los Angeles, Mykonos, and Portugal, flaunting designer gear and luxury Rolex watches bought with the proceeds of their shadowy trade.
The game was up when Met Police specialists cracked the “EncroChat” encrypted phone network—a secret messaging service used by the underworld’s most dangerous players.
The “Food Delivery” Trap
De Vere-Hunt thought he was “invisible” using the handles Modernfeet and Immaculatetractor to shift hundreds of kilos of drugs.
But elite detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime unit tracked him down to his bolthole in Kelvedon Hatch through a combination of phone data and—in a bizarre twist—takeaway food deliveries ordered to the house.
Cops swooped on the property on January 9 last year, just as De Vere-Hunt was preparing to flee the country on a flight out of the UK.
Inside the house, they found a “department store” of illegal substances, including:
15kg of Ketamine
12kg of Cannabis
6kg of Class A drugs (MDMA and 2C-B)
£179,000 in loose cash
Justice Served
At Kingston Crown Court on Friday, De Vere-Hunt was handed a 12-year stretch after admitting to a laundry list of charges including conspiracy to conceal criminal property and drug supply.
His accomplice girlfriend, Rosie Wise, dodged an immediate prison sentence. She was handed 21 months, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to her role in the operation.
PC Bob Rosie, who led the painstaking hunt, said: “Investigating De Vere-Hunt was like finding a needle in a haystack. He has been brought to justice thanks to thorough detective work.
Every seizure, every arrest, and every conviction undoubtedly makes London safer.”
The conviction comes as the Met revealed they disrupted organised crime gangs over 21,000 times last year—a massive 63% spike in the war on London’s drug lords.
