A DRUGS exchange was handled with such ineptitude it looked like something from a “bad James Bond” film, a court heard.

Police officers watched as Ian Frost met a fellow gang member in Palmeira Square, Hove, where they swapped plastic bags.

Moments later he went into his nearby flat to “test” the product before sending it out over the city for distribution, jurors were told.

When he emerged he dumped a plastic bag of leftover drugs – which was later found to be laced with heroin – in a bin and left, Hove Crown Court heard.

Caroline Haughey, prosecuting, said: “It was like a scene from a bad James Bond film. Subtle it was not.”

Frost, 48, is on trial with four others accused of being part of a drugs empire motivated by “profit and “greed” which operated along “commercial lines”.

Their job was to move the pure class A drug sourced from their bosses in Liverpool down to the South Coast by car before it was cut, bagged up and sold on the streets of Brighton, Hove and Eastbourne.

Ms Haughey detailed how over the course of 11 months police pieced together the movements of the gang and identified the key figures in the chain of command.

Then they watched and recorded where and when drugs were exchanged around the city and how the cash profits from the illegal business network were stored.

The operation involved several raids where thousands of pounds in cash, drugs and even a Taser were found, the court was told.

She added: “It was clear how the hierarchy [of the gang] worked.”

Frost, of Palmeira Square, Hove, Louis Makai, 45, of Langridge Drive, Portslade, Lea Smith, 46, of Natal Road, Brighton, Sean Davidson 49, of Downhill View, Brighton, and Ronnie Edwards 49, of Chiddingly Close, Brighton, all deny being part of a conspiracy to supply heroin.

The trial continues.

Click here to read our coverage of the trial so far