Clacton: Investigators secure £76,000 from cocaine dealer

Financial investigators have ensured a drug dealer criminal gains of more than £76,000 confiscated.

Franky Brown, 28, formerly of Langham Drive, Clacton, was previously jailed for five-and-a-half years for supplying cocaine and possessing criminal property.

His assets were seized at the same time and now, following a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing, £76,247.17 has been confiscated by court order.

These confiscation orders allow officers to reclaim as much as possible from offenders to fund further work by the Home Office and Essex Police to tackle these offences, as well as supporting charitable causes through the Essex Community Foundation.

In March 2025, officers saw Brown leaving a house in North Road in the town with a heavy parcel and get into a taxi. We followed the taxi and directed it to pull over. In a panic Brown ran away, throwing a kilo of Class A drugs over a low garden wall in the moments before officers caught him in a foot chase.

Further searches found more drugs and £15,000 in cash at addresses linked to Brown. He pleaded guilty to his charges and was jailed on 5 September 2025.

Alongside the criminal investigation, our Serious Economic Crime Unit set out to prove exactly what assets Brown had available. In total, we estimated Brown had benefitted from more than £120,000 through his offending and he had assets worth £76k available for confiscation.

Financial Investigator Emma Gibson said:

This money is the result of painstaking reviews of financial records, bank statements and transactions.
Every penny we prove was ill gotten is a penny less in the pocket of criminals.
That’s crucial when tackling drug dealing – disrupting the money in the harmful cycle of drug supply makes it harder and harder for criminals to benefit.
Instead that money goes back into fighting county lines drug dealing and supporting causes in our own communities.

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