Described by North Yorkshire Police as ‘York’s most wanted criminal’, Alfred Philip Dear (snr) is wanted no more.
Dear has been arrested after being on the run for over a year.
He was arrested in Swaffham by Norfolk Constabulary on Saturday (22 February) and was due to appear at Leeds Crown Court this afternoon (Monday 24 February).
Dear, previously of York and Hull, was the head of an organised crime gang who peddled heroin and cocaine in York.
Found guilty
He was found guilty in his absence of conspiracy to supply class A drugs on 26 October 2018.
After failing to turn up at court for sentencing in December 2018, he was sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment which also included three years for a raid on a cash machine in East Yorkshire.
An investigation was launched to locate him including several public appeals for information about his whereabouts.
Altogether 11 members of his gang were jailed that month for a total of more than 102 years.
The gang, comprised of members of the same family and their trusted network of co-conspirators, included his two sons, Alfred (Jnr), 26, and Levi, 24, both of James Street Caravan Site, York.
They pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class a drugs at an earlier hearing and were jailed for 12 years each.