Ten drug dealing gangsters have been jailed for more than 116 years after police busted their network when they discovered a bag full of cocaine in a Cardiff street. Officers from south Wales, Essex, Thames Valley and the Metropolitan police forces dismantled seven organised crime gangs linked to a multi-million pounds Albanian drugs network.
Police recovered around £450,000 in cash as well as several kilos of cocaine, expensive clothes and jewellery worth about £100,000.
The gang created 'hides' behind the back seats in their vehicles to store their drugs and cash, with £80,000 found in one van alone. The joint police investigation led officers to Albanian national Bledar Mziu, who was responsible for flooding the streets of south Wales and the south east of England with massive quantities of high purity cocaine.
Officers spent months tracking Mziu, 31, as he sourced the Class A drug from his own suppliers in the south east of England, and used fellow Albanian nationals Hysen Lika, 24, and Robert Xhepa, 29, to run drugs into south Wales.
Police surveillance led officers to five recipients – Paul Wyatt, Nicky Watson, Kevin Patton, Tamar Sheblan and Hayder Sheblan – all of whom were running their own organised crime gangs in south Wales.
The gang used 'sophisticated' anti-surveillance tactics to avoid detection, Cardiff Crown Court was told.
The chance discovery of a rucksack containing 1.5 kilos of crack cocaine, which had been abandoned in the middle of a road in Cardiff in August 2016, provided a further boost as officers were able to forensically link brothers Ali Sheblan, 23, and Hayder Sheblan, 25, to the network.
Following a number of arrests throughout the investigation, during which some individual members of the gangs were convicted and sentenced, police carried out a series of raids across the UK in June 2017.
This led to the recovery of almost half a million pounds in cash, multiple kilos of cocaine and high-value clothing and jewellery wroth around £100,000, while multiple arrests were made throughout the UK and in Marbella. <!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
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