A bungling teenage drug mule dug up more than £100,000 of heroin in full view of watching police officers in Dundee.
Charles Simons had travelled from Liverpool to the city to uncover the stash, which had been secreted on Balgay Hill by Merseyside drug dealers.
The 18-year-old had been “forced” to come to Dundee to collect the drugs after running up significant debts with the gang.
Instead, he led passing officers straight to the cache, when his furtive demeanour roused their suspicions.
They waited nearby, watching his accomplices, as he skulked along footpaths frequented by joggers and dog walkers to dig up two large coffee jars containing heroin. He was apprehended a short time later, following a brief chase.
The chance arrest is now likely to lead to Simons being sent to a young offenders institution when he is sentenced on April 17.
Depute fiscal Vicki Bell told the court officers had spotted a car filled with young men parking in a dead end near to Balgay Hill on May 1 last year.
As the police officers looked on, one man got out from the driver’s side of the car, while Simons climbed out of the rear.
“Simons was carrying a yellow carrier bag and officers saw the pair walk into Balgay Hill, a wooded area,” she said.
“The two males appeared to be continuously looking around and that a third male, who had remained in the car, was sitting in the front passenger seat looking around furtively.
“Both officers formed the opinion that the behaviour of these three males was rather suspicious.”
The officers contacted a colleague by radio to check the details of the car and they soon had their suspicions confirmed when information came back that the car was uninsured and linked to drug dealers from Liverpool.
Around five minutes later, Simons emerged from the woods carrying a yellow carrier bag, which appeared to be full.
He and his accomplice got back into the car, which drove a short distance before Simons once again got out, still carrying the bag, and took off on foot.
The court was told that officers had given chase, with the teen seen to throw the yellow carrier bag into the grounds of a church on Tullideph Road.
He was briefly lost to sight but traced a short time later walking in the grounds of Dudhope Castle.
Officers recovered the bag from within the church grounds and found that it contained more than a kilo of heroin, broken down into 81 large packages and 156 smaller packages.
The drugs had a potential street value of more than £104,000.
When interviewed by police, Simons admitted that “two stashes” had been buried in the coffee jars at Balgay.
Officers who went to search the wooded area subsequently found two “freshly dug” holes in the ground.
Simons, of Park Street, Merseyside, admitted that on May 1 at Balgay Hill, Saggar Street, and Loganlee Terrace, he was concerned in the supply of heroin.