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Moment county lines drug dealer is arrested in front of Scarface poster after gang pumped £1.1m of coke into small towns
Police have smashed an Albanian led coke gang
THIS is the moment a county lines drug dealer was arrested in front of a Scarface poster as police took down a gang that had pumped £1.1m of cocaine into small towns.
One of the gang members had a poster of Tony Montana, the fictional drug boss played by Al Pacino in the 1980s movie which is adored by mobsters around the world.
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But when an alert PCSO spotted a driver behaving suspiciously in Derbyshire, the observation led to a massive police investigation into an Albanian crime gang flooding the UK with cocaine.
Police soon realised Gazmend Hoxha was a middle man working for brothers Edmund and Edward Haziri.
He would drive from his home in Leicester down to London, to drop off the cash earned through the dealing and bring back the next batch of cocaine.
And when a police sniffer dog found an iPhone thrown from a window during a raid in South London, the full extent of the gang's network began to emerge.
Thankfully, through the days and weeks they spent painstaking mapping the behaviour of the gang, the team had unearthed CCTV footage of Krasniqi making a contactless purchase in a convenience store. This footage revealed the pin code to the phone.
Derbyshire police recently released video footage of their strike day against the gang, when there were coordinated raids at multiple addresses in across London and Leicester in March last year.
One team targeted a business premises linked to the gang, and discovered a huge DIY casino complete with poker and blackjack tables in the basement levels.
Derby Crown Court heard the gang’s numerous dealers who would supply as many as 145 users every day.
Most read in The Sun
In total, the OCG is thought to have processed 9kg of cocaine, with an estimated street value of up to £1.1m.
Over the last 20 years Albanian crime gang have slowly taken over the UK's cocaine market.
After making a fortune in London's sex trade in the late 1990s, the Albanians poured their cash into the drug trade.
They have used the so called county lines model to take over the UK's drug market. This is involved setting up satellite drug crews in small towns in across England , Scotland and Wales. The satellite crews are supplied with cocaine by their bosses and typically work for basic wages.
Detective Inspector Kane Martin, who led the investigation, said:"The Eddie line was responsible for poisoning our streets with harmful drugs but the gang simply didn’t care about the damage they left behind.
"They reaped the rewards of their crimes, living lavish lifestyles in London and elsewhere, while the cocaine they pumped into the Midlands destroyed families and relationships.
"The Haziri brothers and their gang are now spending many years behind bars and I hope this sends a very clear message to anyone else involved in drug dealing: we will catch you, put your before the courts, and stop you from spreading misery and addiction in our communities."
The Scarface gang
Edmund Haziri, 36, of no fixed address – jailed for 15 years
Edward Haziri, 34, of Lewisham, London – jailed for 15-and-a-half years
Gazmend Hoxha, 47, of Leicester – jailed for 11 years
Alban Krasniqi, 34, of Blackheath Hill, London – jailed for nine years
Samuel Stoica, 25, of Wolverhampton – jailed for eight years and three months
Simion Stoica, 22, of Wolverhampton – jailed for three-and-a-half years
Kristi Prifti, 23, of no fixed address – jailed for four years
Joshua Garrigan, 32, of Coalville – jailed for two years and eight months
Razvan Manoliu, 27, of Burton-upon-Trent – jailed for two years and eight months
Daniel Stavrat, 29, of no fixed address – due to be sentenced next month
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