"In total, there was 505 grams of cocaine worth £25,000."
Aneesa Ahmed, aged 22, from Burslem in Stoke-On-Trent, has been jailed for 28 months after being caught possessing over £25,000 worth of cocaine with intent to supply.
Ahmed had accumulated huge debts with a dealer who introduced her to cannabis after her marriage had broken down in October 2017.
To repay her debts to the dealer, she agreed to be a drugs runner.
On March 23, 2018, Ahmed was travelling in a Skoda taxi in Audley, Stoke-On-Trent with the cocaine, taking it to her ‘running’ destination.
However, the taxi was stopped by police.
Annesa was caught couriering the drugs and officers found over half a kilogram of very high purity cocaine in the taxi.
Ahmed was arrested upon discovery of the drugs and she pleaded guilty in April 2018 to the crime.
At her hearing at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court, the court heard the details of how Ahmed was caught with the highly street valued cocaine.
Leading the prosecution against Ahmed, Peter McCartney, told the court that her taxi was stopped by police just before midnight.
Mr McCartney described what happened next, saying:
“The defendant was in the rear seat. The police told her she was going to be searched for drugs.
“In her bag, they found two packages wrapped in cling film and she was arrested.”
“In the rear footwell, they found another item wrapped in cling film.”
The drugs found in her bag contained cocaine with 90% purity and were split into 250 grams and 130 grams packages. The package found in the footwell contained 125 grams with the same purity percentage.
Mr McCartney said:
“In total, there was 505 grams of cocaine worth £25,000.”
When Aneesa Ahmed was questioned by police regarding the drugs, she declined to make any comments.
Subsequently, Ahmed did plead guilty to the possession of a class A drug with intent to supply.
Her defence lawyer, Craig MacGregor described his defendant Ahmed in a very vulnerable state.
MacGregor said the knock-on effect of the breakdown of her marriage led Ahmed to start using cannabis. After which her debts spiralled out of control.
He said:
“She lost her job and it was all on tick. When she asked for a couple of bags of ‘bud’ she was told she could wipe out a debt if she did this job for them. She was a courier.
“If she did not do this job they were going to get the £200 debt from her parents. That was the pressure she was under.”
However, he explained that Ahmed does realise now that she has a drug problem and mental health issues.
Sentencing Aneesa Ahmed, Judge Paul Glenn justified that an immediate jail sentence for Ahmed was the only way to highlight the seriousness of the crime she had committed.
The use and supply of cocaine in the UK are on the increase.
An Office for National Statistics report said in 2017 stated:
“The National Crime Agency reports that there was a significant increase in both crack and powder cocaine purity at all levels in 2016, including user-level, which may partly explain the increase in deaths relating to cocaine.”
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