"A lot of that is to do with stigma."

Officers estimated they were involved in moving more than 100kg of Class A drugs each.Lewis laundered the money earned from the sale of the drugs, while Johnson was identified as a customer who bought 5kg of cocaine for his own drug supply operation.

Police said that between April and November 2022, the men made 163 journeys up and down the country, staying in places including Crewe and Bristol before returning to Coventry with drugs and money.They were arrested that year.Police saw messages between the men discussing the transport of drugs and money.

A search of Purcell's home also uncovered a blank-firing handgun which had been converted to fire live ammunition.During the operation, officers seized 21kg of cocaine, 4.9kg of ketamine, 17g of MDMA and more than £450,000 in cash.

Prescott and Mann pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and conspiracy to launder money and were jailed for eight years, and 13 years and four months respectively.

For the same offences, as well as having an offensive weapon, Alexander Purcell was sentenced to nine years and seven months."He said that he wanted to be one of the biggest artists in the world and it didn't matter if I believed him or not," remembers Jimmy Maynes, a former Uptown colleague.

Maynes remembers Combs having a short fuse in the office, sometimes banging "his hands up against the desk" like a "bratty kid" and yelling if he did not get his way.Combs was eventually fired from Uptown and at the age of 23 started Bad Boy Records.

"He's the hardest working man that I've ever met and always wanted people to match his energy," says Daniel Evans, a senior executive who managed Bad Boy's recording budgets and artists' contracts between 1994 and 1997.Combs described himself as the "Great Gatsby" and swiftly became known for hosting coveted celebrity bashes at New York nightclubs, on the beaches of Cancun, Mexico, and later infamous "White Parties" - named after the all-white dress code - in the Hamptons.