A taxi driver caught red-handed dealing crack cocaine from his cab is now facing prison.Police found $13,200 worth of drugs, plus a scale and $52,470 cash in Hewvonnie Brown’s taxi last March.The 37-year-old was caught in a police sting after a tip-off that he was peddling drugs.Brown appeared in Magistrates’ Court yesterday to be sentenced, having earlier pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine with intent to supply and possessing the proceeds of crime.Prosecutor Cindy Clarke explained that plain-clothed officers in an unmarked police car, who were “acting on specific information received,” watched Brown exit the Bermuda Island Taxi Service office on North Street, Pembroke at 11am last March 21.He was wearing a black backpack and got into the driver’s side of his Toyota taxi.Ms Clarke explained: “Another man also entered the taxi and sat in the passenger seat. Officers followed the taxi around the city block but noticed it was driving very slowly and even stopped while the driver and the passenger appeared to talk.“The taxi shortly returned to its original parking spot, picked up a female and continued south on Court Street. This raised the officers’ suspicions and the vehicle was eventually stopped with the use of emergency equipment as the vehicles approached the junction of Court and Front Streets.”Ms Clarke said when the driver of the police car approached Brown: “The officer immediately noticed that the defendant had a panicked look on his face. His eyes were wide open and he was fidgeting in his seat. He appeared to be reaching into his pockets, but upon the loud voice commands of the officer, he unlocked and opened the door.”She explained that Brown protested and tried to twist his body away to prevent a police officer searching him under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The officer found a plastic twist of crack in his jacket pocket.Brown was arrested and taken to Hamilton Police Station. When his backpack was searched, 16 stacks of cash were found wrapped with elastic bands, plus a large amount of money in Brown’s wallet. The money totalled $5,570.A digital scale was found in a compartment in his cab and a plastic twist of crack, a razor blade and a box of ziplock bags in another compartment. The total weight of the crack was 42.3 grams with a street value of $13,200. He refused to comment when interviewed by police.The area where he was first spotted, plus the areas he travelled through and stopped in, are all Increased Penalty Zones which attract harsher punishments for drugs offences committed within them.Ms Clarke said Brown, of Mission House Close, St David’s, had not been in court for drugs before, but was convicted of stealing in November 1995 and given a conditional discharge.He has agreed to sign a confiscation order totalling $120,000; a sum representing the assets prosecutors believe he bought with his drug-dealing money. She suggested he should be given a 12- to 18-month sentence plus an additional year in jail to reflect the fact that he was dealing in an Increased Penalty Zone.Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo ordered pre-sentence reports and remanded Brown into custody until a further hearing next month, when he will be sentenced.Invited to comment, Tafari Outerbridge, the owner of Bermuda Island Taxi Service, said Brown was not working for his company at the time of the offence. He confirmed that Brown had a cab registered with the firm, but said that did not make him an employee, and he may just have been visiting the office on the date in question.The case is the second in week where a public vehicle driver has been punished for drug dealing. Former Corporation of Hamilton garbage collector Keion Simmons was fined $50,000 after police found cannabis in his trash truck on Court Street, Hamilton, last June.Simmons, 34, of Sandys, admitted possessing the drug with intent to supply in an increased penalty zone and was sentenced last Thursday.