A MONMOUTHSHIRE man who sold "legal highs" has been ordered to repay nearly £900,000 from his international drug empire run from his home.

Christopher Holloway, 34, of Raglan, ran a website selling mind-bending drugs to 12,000 customers around the world.

Cardiff Crown Court heard he advertised the substances as "legal highs" and sent them to customers as far away as Tokyo and California in the US.

But when police raided his home they found the pills and powder contained banned substances.

Police were “staggered” by the scale of Holloway's operation housed at his semi-detached home, having found more than 8kg of class A, B and C drugs with a street value in excess of £3.5m.

Holloway imported the drugs from India and China before selling them on his site called “benzofury.me.uk”.

He used his earnings to fund a jet set lifestyle holidaying in Las Vegas, where he spent almost £25,000 gambling and £4,000 hiring sports cars.

But he was yesterday ordered to repay £884,541 of drug money seized by police.

Detective Sergeant Michael Preston said: "Holloway made over £884,000 as a result of crimes including money laundering and supplying controlled drugs.

"Financial Investigators found those funds, froze them and a court ruled that they will be permanently taken from him.

"This means that as well as serving a lengthy prison sentence, Holloway will not benefit from his crimes at all.

"I hope that this reassures our communities that Gwent Police work hard to ensure that crime does not pay."

Holloway was jailed for 10 years in October 2014 after a judge told him he had a "ruthless pursuit of wealth".

Judge Phillip Richards told him: "You showed an obvious desire to make money regardless of what harm it might cause to other people and society.

"There can be no doubt that your enjoyment of the proceeds ran into millions of pounds."

His drug dealing was discovered by border staff when they intercepted a shipment on its way to his home.

He had dozens of plastic sandwich boxes filled with powder and labelled with nicknames such as "sniff" as well as a dozen bank cards.

Officers checked his bank accounts and found £2.5 million of unexplained deposits between June 1, 2010, and March 11, 2014.

Holloway pleaded guilty to importation of controlled drugs, possession with intent to supply controlled drugs, supplying controlled drugs and money laundering.