Two cocaine dealers – one of whom also hid £100,000 in cash inside a flat – have been jailed for a total of almost eight years.
Officers from the Organised Crime Partnership – a joint National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police Service unit – investigated Albanian nationals Orest Malushi, 44, from Barnet, and Olsian Vogli, 31, from Birmingham.
The pair were arrested beside Malushi’s car in Hendon, north London, in July last year by OCP officers who had them under surveillance.
Vogli had been seen entering and leaving a flat on Caversham Road that he used as a stash house shortly before the arrest.
OCP officers searched a black rucksack he was carrying, which contained half a kilo of cocaine.
They also found three mobile phones and a further two-and-a-half kilos of cocaine which had been hidden inside a specially adapted hide in the glovebox of Malushi’s car.
More than £100,000 in cash and a mobile phone with several SIM cards were found after the apartment was searched.
Malushi and Vogli pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply during previous hearings at St Albans Crown Court, and were sentenced to two years and six months and five years and four months respectively at Harrow Crown Court (sitting at Willesden Magistrates’ Court) yesterday (9 January).
Andrew Tickner, from the Organised Crime Partnership, said:
“The cocaine supplied by Olsian Vogli and Orest Malushi was clearly generating large profits for the organised crime group they belonged to, as shown by the amount of cash we found in the apartment.
“The hide in Malushi’s car was ultimately a futile attempt to conceal his criminality, but shows the time and attention that drug suppliers will put into their criminal profession.
“The class A drugs trade fuels gang violence and suffering in the UK, which is why the NCA and Met Police’s strong partnership is at the forefront of dismantling the organised criminal groups behind it.”