A WOOLSTON man is set to be sentenced for his role in a gang who planned to sell drugs with a street value of up to £740,000 in Wigan.

Ryan Hackett, aged 37, of Cliftonville Road, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin and is to be sentenced at a later date after the ringleaders were jailed on Tuesday for 28 years.

Daniel Tang, aged 35, from Golborne and John Rasburn, aged 34, of Abram, were jailed for 18 and 10 years respectively at Liverpool Crown Court for leading the criminal enterprise.

The pair arranged for large quantites of drugs to be brought to Wigan from London and were considered by many in the community to be 'untouchable' by the authorities.

During the covert operation led by The North West Regional Organised Crime Unit Hackett was seen handing a 3kg heroin of bag over to another man on April 21, 2010.

Detective Inspector Michael Fraser, of the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: "No criminal is untouchable and this success demonstrates that, with the right information, we can arrest anyone.

"This investigation has been possible because of the collaboration of the North West forces. Several different tiers of organised crime involved in the supply and distribution of class A controlled drugs throughout the North West have been removed.”