Drug gang member ordered to pay back just £1 despite £120k gain

A man who made multiple trips to a Newport hotel used as a base for an organised crime gang has been ordered to pay back just £1 despite benefiting by more than £120,000 from his criminal activity.

Shaquille Germaine, 27, made nine trips to the Box Hotel in Newport along with his father Jamie Germaine, 52, and his brother Tyrell Germaine, 29. Hotel manager Ihtesham Ali Hassan, 46, facilitated the conspiracy which saw heroin, cocaine and MDMA stored at the hotel and its sister hotel, the Box Guest House.

Drug couriers based at the hotel would travel throughout the UK delivering and collecting huge quantities of drugs and cash. Class A drugs worth £135,000 including thousands of MDMA tablets were later seized from the hotel.

Messages found on Shaquille Germaine’s phone showed he had been involved in selling huge amounts of MDMA tablets, with photos and videos showing thousands of tablets branded with Donkey Kong.

On 15th June 2023, all three Germaines travelled to the Box Hotel but upon returning to Cardiff they were stopped by police in their car on the A48 in Marshfield. Tyrell Germaine told officers there was a bag of class A drugs in the back.

A search revealed a Lidl bag containing five packages with 4,553 MDMA tablets worth between £13,599 and £45,330.

Hassan, of Cefn Coed Road, Roath, Cardiff, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin, cocaine and MDMA and was sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment.

Jamie Germaine, of HMP Parc, was sentenced to seven years and four months’ imprisonment. Shaquille Germaine and Tyrell Germaine, both of Pepys Crescent, Llanrumney, received seven years and six months, and four years and two months respectively.

At a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday, Judge Shomon Khan heard that Shaquille Germaine benefited to the tune of £119,965 from his offending but has no available assets. The judge ordered him to pay a nominal sum of £1 within two months or serve an additional seven days’ imprisonment in default. 📱