Operation Venetic: Kent man jailed for cocaine supply

21 Nov 2025 02:23 PM

A drug dealer from Kent who supplied multi-kilo quantities of cocaine to gangs in London has been jailed

Officers from the Organised Crime Partnership – a joint National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police Service unit – investigated 34-year-old Joshua Bromwell, from Harrietsham.

He used encrypted communications platform EncroChat to arrange the supply of three kilos of cocaine to south London locations including Stockwell and the Oval between March and June 2020, under the handle 'acecarlito'.

The organised crime group he led also supplied cocaine to the London Fields gang, who are known to be involved in significant criminal violence including the use of firearms and bladed weapons.

Bromwell also supplied cocaine in 2023 via WhatsApp on a conventional phone, claiming in court that he was a music producer.

The WhatsApp conspiracy was revealed when US border security officers questioned him after he landed at Atlanta Airport in June 2023. They examined his phone and found message threads which showed he was orchestrating drug dealing on a large scale. This included at least 52 kilos supplied over the course of 15 days during that month.

The first thread was with a user called ‘Biggs’, who was identified as 29-year-old John Nwaogbo from Erith in Bexley. He was arrested by OCP officers in June 2023 in possession of 35 kilos of cocaine found at a safe house in Peacock Close, Barnet. He subsequently pleaded guilty to drugs supply offences and was jailed for seven years in 2024.

Other messages showed that Bromwell had paid £3,500 for a hidden compartment to be added to a vehicle used to transport drugs.

OCP officers arrested him at his home in September 2023, with subsequent searches uncovering a lavish lifestyle. Designer clothes and high value electrical goods were found throughout the home, along with two Rolex watches worth tens of thousands of pounds, an Audemars Piguet watch and receipts from Harrods.

These items clashed with Bromwell’s tax returns, suggesting that between 2020 and 2024 he had an annual income of £18,000.

Bromwell was charged with two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs (cocaine). A jury convicted him at Croydon Crown Court on 24 January this year, following a two-week trial. He was sentenced to 20 years at the same court today (21 November).

Elements of the OCP investigation into Bromwell formed part of Operation Venetic, the UK NCA-led law enforcement response to the takedown of EncroChat in June 2020.

Andrew Tickner, NCA Operations Manager from the OCP, said: “In one sense Joshua Bromwell was a typical street level drug dealer, as his activity from 2020 demonstrates.

“However, this investigation showed that he was also living the life of luxury which was enabled by higher end drug dealing, all while claiming to be a music producer.

“The unique partnership between the NCA and Metropolitan Police continues to fight the serious criminality behind class A drugs supply, which fuels violence, intimidation and exploitation in our communities.

“Our efforts will never slow down and we will bring more harmful offenders like Bromwell to justice.”

The Organised Crime Partnership (formerly the Middle Market Drugs Partnership) has been in operation for 20 years and comprises equal numbers of specialist NCA officers and Metropolitan Police detectives.

The team works to stop the flow of drugs to the criminal market in London, target upstream criminals that impact on London, as well as disrupting those overseas that make huge profits from this illegal activity.