Woman who ran drug empire for lavish lifestyle ordered to pay back just £96k

Danielle Stafford cashed in as she ran a multimillion pound drug enterprise in East Yorkshire, but she was soon found out after police pulled her up on a completely unrelated crime

Danielle Stafford is already serving over seven years in prison (Image: Hull Daily Mail / MEN Media )

A drug lord who funded a luxury lifestyle from cannabis has been ordered to pay back £96k.

Danielle Stafford, 31, ran a major drug empire in Hull, was ordered to pay the money back as the proceeds of crime. However, she has just 12 weeks to scrape the money together to pay it back.

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Stafford earned millions while cannabis and cocaine flooded the streets of Hull. She used the money to fund a luxury lifestyle, filled with major getaways and lavish treats – raking in so much money, she barely even used any of the salary she was earning as an engineer.

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Hull Crown Court also heard that she was able to bring so much extra income, Stafford could buy a second home for herself. However, whenever she was challenged by mates about her constant lavish lifestyle, the drug empress pretended the luxury items were all fake or given to her from family members.

Danielle Stafford raked in money while sitting on a drug empire (Image: Hull Daily Mail / MEN Media )

However, unlucky for Danielle, she was eventually caught after she was stopped by police who had seen her speeding. HullLive reported that while she had been detained, a phone had been constantly ringing, with 30 missed phone calls and up to 20 different messages relating to drugs being made after she was arrested.

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During her interrogation, Stafford was spotted “fidgeting” with her jogger bottoms, with officers asking if she had any other narcotics on her person. She admitted she did but denied she knew what they were and insisted it was not hers.

After claiming: “I shoved it down my joggers when you pulled me,” Stafford went on to pull out a bag with a vast number of small bags of cocaine. In total, 56 bags were counted with an estimated value of £2,800.

She spent the money she earned on lavish holidays and expensive treats (Image: Hull Daily Mail / MEN Media )

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Humberside Police soon scored a warrant to look into Stafford’s home, where they soon discovered a total of £26,917 in cash stashed in various places. They also then found a slew of drugs worth an estimated street value of £33,600, as well as host of other lavish items including nine watches and three Louis Vuitton handbags.

Officers soon charged Stafford, who graduated from the University of Hull, and had been living on Hallgate in Cottingham, with the offences and took her to court. In April 2023, Stafford pleaded guilty to being concerned in supplying heroin, crack cocaine and cannabis and another of possessing cash as criminal property.

After admitting to the incidents, which took place between October 2017 and May 2020, she was officially sentenced to over seven and a half years in prison for working as the ringleader of the drug gang. However, her case resurfaced in June as the court was yet to decide on exactly how much money was made from the drug network.

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Stafford was ordered to pay £96k back in 3 months or face another year in jail (Image: MEN MEDIA )

Prosecutor Nadim Bashir said that Stafford had earned a cool £96,263 as a result of her dodgy dealings. Attending the court hearing via videolink, Stafford was told she had to pay the money back within three months or risk being hit with another jail stint of one year – that would be served immediately after her previous one ended.

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