Albanian gang flooded Tunbridge Wells with £4million of cocaine

A GANG of Albanians have been jailed for selling £4million of cocaine to residents of Tunbridge Wells in a year.

The ten criminals – nine of whom were in the UK illegally – operated a 24/7 ‘call-centre type operation’ in the well-heeled Kent town.

Nelson Aliaj, 28, was deported in 2018 but sneaked back to set up the drug-dealing ring. He targeted the town because of its wealth and recruited helpers who owed debts to people smugglers who had brought them into Britain.

At Canterbury Crown Court, Judge Catherine Brown punished the gang with a total of 60 years behind bars. Sentencing Aliaj to 15 years, she said: ‘This was serious organised crime and you were at the very heart of this conspiracy. You saw the UK and, in particular, the Tunbridge Wells area of Kent as being a way to earning substantial sums of money.

‘You had no regard to the casualties you would cause, both in terms of the drug users themselves, the knock-on effects of drug crime on the wider community, and the consequences for those people – often vulnerable because of their illegal status in the UK, who were recruited to carry out drug dealing for the conspiracy.’

The gang is thought to have been selling an average of 1kg of cocaine a week in Tunbridge Wells and nearby Tonbridge.

Its delivery service was likened to the mobile takeaway apps Deliveroo and Just Eat.

Based in Surrey Quays, south-east London, it became known as the ‘24/7 conspiracy’ because the gang was running drugs at all hours of the day into the Kent town.

Users ordered £40 half-gram bags of cocaine by calling the phone number in London and confirming their postcode.

Dealers living in rented accommodation in Tunbridge Wells were then sent to the customer’s location.

The scheme was foiled by undercover detectives who bought drugs from the gang over a number of weeks. During five months in 2018 the gang turned over £1million from selling cocaine. In one week in July they received 1,500 orders worth at least £60,000.

One gang member was filmed throwing cash at a nightclub singer, another boasted of sending a Range Rover Sport back to Albania and a third bought his mother-in-law new teeth. The judge said yesterday it was more likely the criminals were turning over £4million a year.

All the ten accused were charged with conspiracy to supply cocaine. Half had entered guilty pleas and half were found guilty at the end of the 27-day trial.

‘Call-centre type operation’