A DRUG dealer who unwittingly sold heroin on several occasions to undercover police officers has been jailed.

Christopher Buckley received a total of four years two months custody and was the latest casualty in Bury police's highly successful blitz on hard drug dealing in the town.

Codenamed Operation Venice four undercover officers pretended to be heroin users and infiltrated their way into the drug dealing network in Bury.

So successful was the operation, carried during the spring and summer of last year, that one addict when arrested, said there was only one person left in the town selling drugs.

Buckley, aged 34, of Calder Flats, Heywood, appeared at Bolton Crown Court for sentence. He had earlier admitted two charges of being concerned in the supply of heroin and one of supplying a Class A drug, heroin, on dates in June last year.

Prosecutor David Friesner said Buckley had sold drugs to undercover officers at his home address.

When arrested he had on him £120 in cash and a mobile phone and corners of plastic bags used to wrap up heroin were found at his home.

The court heard that Buckley had a number of previous convictions and was in breach of a conditional discharge for possession of heroin.

It was also revealed that because he was an addict, he was desperate to get the drugs and continued selling heroin to the undercover officers -- even though he suspected he was under police surveillance.

Judge Bruce Macmillan said Buckley was the latest dealer to be caught under the highly successful Operation Venice.

He jailed him for four years for the heroin offences and also ordered him to serve two months consecutively for breaching the conditional discharge.

In an eight-month sting, undercover officers gathered enough covert video and audio tape evidence to make 29 arrests.

So far 27 people have been jailed for a total of 89 years and one month with two trials due to be heard involving alleged dealing.