Jailed: ‘County lines’ drug dealers from Hackney gang - caught after one dropped trap phone while fleeing from cops

Five Hackney gang members who sold drugs in Cambridgeshire via two lucrative ‘county lines’ – who were caught when one of them dropped the “trap phone” as he ran away from police - have been sentenced to over 36 years’ imprisonment between them.

The group sold heroin and crack cocaine in Peterborough and Huntingdon via dedicated phone lines nicknamed ‘Ricki’ and ‘TJ’.

On November 2, Jodeci Ofulue, 24, of Parkside Estate, Rutland Road, South Hackney, approached an abandoned vehicle in Hawksbill Way in Peterborough. When police tried to stop him he ran away, dropping his keys and the mobile phone controlling one of the phone lines they had called ‘Ricki’.

Police found nearly £14,000 worth of heroin and crack cocaine, scales and used latex gloves in the car.

Detectives from the Met’s Trident gangs unit used phone analysis and police surveillance to link each man to the drug dealing network, and the others were arrested in March after a nine-month long investigation.

Drugs with a street value in excess of £17,000 were seized, along with designer clothing, jewellery, more than £25,000 cash, and a stolen watch worth over £20,000. Ofulue and Sherif Isiaka, 19, of Eastdown House, Amhurst Road, Dalston, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A and were sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on Friday.

Isiaka received seven years and five months’ imprisonment and Ofulue six years and nine months.

Rashayne Hunter, 20, and Samuel Awoyera, 20, both of Evelyn Court, Amhurst Road, and a 17-year-old youth who cannot be named, were found guilty on trial of conspiring to supply a class A drug, and were also sentenced on Friday.

Hunter received 10-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, while Awoyera got seven-and-a-half years. The youth, who was also found guilty of possession of criminal property, was sentenced to four years and four months’ imprisonment.

DS Gary Clarke of Trident’s, said the investigation had been “complex”.

“Drug dealers prey on local users and use violence and intimidation, bringing with them misery and violent crime to local communities,” he said. “These sentences demonstrate just how seriously the criminal justice system is taking the issue of county lines drugs rings.”