To the outside world he looked like a hard-working father who lived in a modest, end-of-terrace house.

“There was nothing flash about him at all, nothing screamed this person is a drug dealer,” said the covert officer who led the surveillance of Robert Andrews Jr.

The 34-year-old wasn’t even on the radar of police until officers found messages from him on the phone of another gang leader, in which they joked they would either end up “millionaires” or “sharing a cell” as they regularly sorted six-figure drug deals.

Detectives quickly realised that behind the everyman image, Andrews Jr was the mastermind of a multi-million pound drug empire selling cocaine and heroin on an industrial scale.

He had been quietly getting away with his wholesale criminal enterprise until messages he hoped would remain strictly between him and another drugs gang boss were seen by police.

Secret police filming soon caught Andrews Jr doing brazen Class A drug deals in broad daylight and handing over more than £100,000 at a time in supermarket carrier bags.

“He seemed like an average guy, always wore his work clothes, lived in a regular house, with his partner and children,” a covert officer told the BBC’s Catching a Crime Boss.

“There was no high value vehicle, no designer clothing.”

Organised crime detectives were alerted to Andrews Jr when officers found some revealing WhatsApp messages on the phone of another drugs kingpin called Kerry Evans.

Evans lived 30 miles (48km) away in Merthyr Tydfil and after arresting him, investigators found Evans had regularly messaged one number in particular to organise drug deals and payments.

That number belonged to a Robert Andrews Jr from Newport.

Evans was sentenced to 14 years and five months in jail last year and Andrews Jr was soon to follow.

“It doesn’t require a mass of information, sometimes it’s just a little nugget that can start the job off,” admitted Gwent Police’s Det Insp Ian Bartholomew.

The WhatsApp exchanges suggested to police that Andrews Jr was a “high level” dealer and detectives were warned that “advanced tactics” would be needed because he might be “difficult to catch”.

Surveillance of Andrews Jr quickly revealed his underground world.

Clandestine officers – under operation name Mayland – followed him to regular liaisons at a secluded woodland patch of land near the busy M4 motorway where several drugs exchanges were caught on camera.

“This was a particular area of interest during the investigation,” the covert officer recalled.

“We noticed a lot of criminality was taking place in this cleared area.”

This location became known simply as “the clearing”.

“It was a very dense area,” she added.

“You’d only go there if you knew it or had specific directions so I think it was a real safe place where the organised crime group can conduct their criminality and feel like they weren’t in the public eye.”

One exchange resulted in the arrest of taxi driver Mohammed Yamin, whose cab was intercepted by police after he drove from “the clearing” where he had collected 2kg (4.4lb) of high purity cocaine from Andrews Jr.

It had a street value of around £200,000 and resulted in Yamin getting a six-and-a-half year prison sentence for possession with intent to supply.

Surveillance showed how Andrews Jr used “tokens” to make sure his money got to his supplier.

In one exchange, he was seen taking a £5 bank note from a man who got into his car, and then checking it.

He did not know the man, but knew there was a cash runner arriving from London to collect the money he owed his supplier.

The unique serial number on the bank note was the authentication he needed to ensure he was handing the cash over to the right person.

The cash runner’s bag was later seized and found to contain £109,000.

The investigation found evidence on Andrews Jr’s phone that he had made regular payments of similar amounts to his supplier.

Illustrating the scale of his operation, in two weeks alone he had made six payments to his suppliers, totalling £650,000.

Covert officers were confident they were watching an organised crime group in action and raided Andrews Jr’s house in the early hours of the morning just before Christmas in 2023.

In a final attempt to cover his tracks, Andrews Jr threw his mobile phone on top of a bedroom wardrobe just before police burst into the room to arrest him.

As he was being handcuffed and the covert officer set out the reasons for his arrest, he laughed and “seemed quite unfazed”, the officer said.

His mobile phone was recovered and proved crucial to the investigation as it contained detailed logs of who had ordered what, how much was owed to him and the amount he owed his suppliers.

“Robert Andrews wasn’t somebody who was dealing on a street corner or to his friends,” said Det Ch Supt Andrew Tuck.

“He was dealing in large quantities, kilo amounts of controlled drugs, which would equate to cocaine the size of a bag of sugar at a time.”

Police considered Andrews Jr the principal member of an organised crime group supplying cocaine and heroin across south Wales.

“When you look at the quantities of cash involved, we’re talking tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds per exchange for up to four or five kilos of cocaine at a time,” added Det Ch Supt Tuck.

While Andrews Jr did not show signs of his illicit wealth through “flash cars or expensive designer clothes”, police thought he was funnelling his drug cash into building a new home on secluded land.

When officers raided the unfinished property, they found a £60,000 kitchen and lavish furnishings which suggested a level of wealth that the covert officer who arrested him said an “average working person wouldn’t have been able to afford”.

Andrews Jr admitted to two charges – one of conspiracy to supply cocaine and heroin and the second to actually supplying those drugs – at the start of 2024.

But due to a number of linked cases, it took almost two years for him to be sentenced.

Earlier this month, Andrews Jr was sentenced to 14 years and eight months by a judge at Newport Crown Court – half of which will be served in prison and the other half on licence.

Samuel Takahashi, described by police as a “significant member” of Andrews Jr’s organised crime group, was sentenced to eight years.

The 34-year-old from Newport had also had been caught on police cameras during the nine months of surveillance exchanging drugs with Andrews Jr, sometimes at “the clearing”.

Judge Carl Harrison told Andrews Jr at his sentencing that dealing drugs “fuels misery” and that he should be “ashamed” of involving his own mother in his “criminal enterprise”. At a trial earlier this year, she had been given a suspended sentence for paying one of her son’s couriers.

After tracking Andrews Jr, police identified one of his suppliers from the north-west of England.

Nathan Jones from Bolton, in Greater Manchester, was given an 18 year sentence after the 32-year-old was found selling more than £1m worth of cocaine to Andrews Jr’s gang.

Jones had paid Rahail Mehrban, who is also from Bolton, £2,000 to courier half-a-million pounds worth of cocaine from Manchester to Newport. The 32-year-old was sentenced to 10 years and nine months.

“I hope this sends a strong message to anybody that drug crime has no place in our communities and there will be consequences,” added Det Ch Supt Tuck.