A DRUGS gang which masterminded a commercial distribution operation from a house in a Burnley residential street is beginning jail terms totalling almost 20 years.

Main man Masood Akbar, 26, who was arrested after two months of police observations, kept heroin and crack cocaine to the tune of £32,000 in three cars near the property in Hilary Street.

He was jailed for five years and four months.

Akbar was said to have handed out instructions to his accomplices by phone and got involved purely to make cash, Burnley Crown Court was told.

His right hand man Asim Rauf, 26, was sent down for four years eight months.

Runners Michael McCann, 24, a cocaine addict who needed to fund his own habit and Mohammed Munir, 19, got six years and three months and 14 months respectively.

Sentencing, Judge Beverley Lunt said Akbar was the principal man of the plot, uncovered in May and June last year, and did it purely for financial reward. She told him: "This was, to you, a business opportunity."

Akbar, of St George's Square, admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine, crack cocaine and cannabis in May and June last year.

Rauf, whose family runs a Burnley jewellers, and of Ormerod Road, pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cocaine and cannabis. McCann, of Rossetti Avenue, admitted conspiracy to supply crack cocaine and cannabis resin and possessing ecstacy and amphetamine and cannabis with intent to supply. He also pleaded guilty to allegations of driving whilst disqualified. Munir, of Clegg Street, admitted conspiring to supply cannabis and possessing the drug with intent to supply.

Jeremy Grout-Smith, prosecuting, told the court that on June 9 last year, police found cocaine worth £9,000 in a Peugeot and a Vauxhall Vectra. And crack cocaine to the value of £23,000 was discovered in the glove compartment of a Cavalier.

Empty packages with traces of cocaine were in the front passenger footwell of the Cavalier as well as scales. Four machetes and four balaclavas were in the boot.

Seven hundred miligrammes of cannabis resin were in the boot of the Cavalier, in plastic bags that had obviously contained nine ounce bars.

Mr Grout-Smith said McCann's home was searched on June 4 and officers found ecstasy in powder form, worth £5,800, 27.5 grammes of amphetamine and 201 grammes of herbal cannabis.Just under 61 grammes of herbal cannabis was discovered in a BMW parked near Munir's home.

The prosecutor said: "Police kept watch on 10 Hilary Street in May and June last year using a remote video camera and discovered a pattern of large scale distribution of Class A and B controlled drugs centred around the property emerged."

It was mostly unoccupied but was used by Akbar to distribute drugs, although the drugs themselves were kept in three cars, parked nearby and rarely moved.