Flaunting bundles of cash, county lines gang who f looded Devon with drugs
POSING with wads of cash and expensive watches, brazen members of a county lines gang show off the proceeds of drug dealing.
The group used vulnerable children as young as 13 to run the drugs from London to Exeter.
Yesterday gang members Shuiab Omar Awadh, 24, and Bobo Faki, 19, were found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs following a trial at Exeter Crown Court. Seven other defendants have admitted their part in the large- scale operation, which was infiltrated by Devon and Cornwall Police.
Following their arrests, the arrogant drug dealers – who are now facing lengthy prison terms – were found to have dozens of incriminating videos and pictures on their phones.
They included a clip showing gang member Faisal Ibraham, 24, stroking bundles of £20 and £50 notes down the side of his face. The group’s co-leader Hassan Sufi, 20, is seen grappling with thousands of pounds in cash.
One video shows Sufi holding the bundles up to the camera and saying, ‘light work’. Sufi, whose brother, Yakub, 19, was the gang’s other co-leader, also flashes an expensive watch and designer trainers before an unknown man points the camera at the phone used to run the operation. In other footage, an unknown nknown man is seen tossing thousands of pounds worth of £50 notes while singing about a ‘ trap house’, a slang term for a place where drugs are sold.
Another video shows members of the group kicking bundles of money around the floor while shouting ‘ splash that cash’. Many of the images were taken using the social media app Snapchat, including one showing a grinning Faki and Ahmed Abdullahi, 21, posing with the caption ‘gang business’.
The police investigation into the gang, named Operation Connard, began in July 2017, when an undercover officer bought drugs over the phone on a county line called ‘Mitch’.
The ‘Mitch’ line and two others named ‘ Rico’ and ‘Pricey’ were found to be sending hundreds of promotional text messages to drug users and dealers every day.
Detective Constable Tracey Stafford said the defendants ‘coerced and threatened children into making drug runs from London to Exeter’.
She added: ‘Thankfully, we have managed to identify and help these children, freeing them from the grasp of the gang and allowing them to hopefully have a different future.’
The children involved included one teenage girl and three teenwho
‘Threatened children’
age boys, all from London. One of the boys, known as Kid A, was 14 when he jumped out of a first-floor window with Abdullahi when they thought police were going to arrest them.
Kid A was left with life-changing injuries and his phone revealed texts linked to the county lines, named after the mobile phones used to buy and sell drugs. Over the next 12 months, officers were able to connect different members of the gang through phones, car journeys and DNA.
Gang member Khadija Sharif, 20, was caught travelling with drugs from London to Devon.
Faki was arrested after he was seen visiting Sufi’s London apartment. Awadh was caught when he visited Exeter over Christmas in 2017. Within minutes of his arrival, the drug lines were texting users offers for ‘24 hours’ only. Detective Sergeant Matt Lawrence said the four children involved were coerced into a ‘gang lifestyle’ by the defendants, who would ‘brazenly show off their ill-gotten gains’.
Awadh and Faki, both of London, and the other seven members of the gang will be sentenced on June 14. A further 17 defendants, identified as local street dealers, have been sentenced at previous hearings.