A DRUG supplier who was instrumental in bringing cocaine to Swindon has been ordered to hand back less than a quarter of his benefit from crime.

Marsel Hudri profited by more than £70,000 from his involvement in bringing a quarter of a kilogram of the drug to town from the Midlands.

But the 34-year-old Albanian will only have to repay the £17,750 which was seized after he was arrested following a lengthy covert police operation.

Judge Tim Mousley QC, sitting at Swindon Crown Court, ruled he benefitted from crime to the tune of £71,976.91.

He gave him 28 days to sign over the money, held by the police, or another nine months would be added to his six-year jail term.

Hudri was supplying the cocaine for local brothers Julian and Gary Cox. The three were photographed by police in St Mary's Park, Gorse Hill, in 2012 as they arranged the deal.

Then on September 20 that year Hudri and Albanian friend Edi Kollobani drove from Bristol to Birmingham to pick up the drugs.

But when 30-year-old Kollobani pulled up in Buller Street to make the hand over to Gary Cox, 34, of Ipswich Street, Gorse Hill, the police arrested Kollobani, and 34-year-old Gary as well as his young nephew who had driven him to the pick up.

In the glove box of the car they found 250g of street-strength cocaine, as well as an ounce at super-strong 90 per cent purity.

If the consignment was all cut into street deals it could be sold for more than £18,000.

Julian Cox, 37, was arrested soon after at his home on Deburgh Street, Rodbourne, where officers found a number of mobile phones and a bag of sim cards. Hudri was picked up in his Bristol home.

All four men received jail terms after admitting a charge of conspiracy to supply hard drugs.

The two brothers were also caught in a similar operation in the Midlands and in total Julian got six years and three months, and Gary four-and-a-half years, Hudri six years. Kollobani got 28 months and was told he would be deported.