Judge fires warning to drug gangs as four are jailed for running 'distribution centre' from Hartlepool house

Four Albanian men who ran a cannabis distribution centre from a house in Chester Road, Hartlepool, were jailed on Thursday and will be deported when they finish their sentences.

Teesside Crown Court heard when police raided the house on January 22 they found 10 kilos of packaged cannabis bush in a wardrobe which had a wholesale value of £100,000 and a street value of £200,000.

Paperwork found suggested that they expected to make around £6,000 each from selling the drug to street dealers.

Leo Metushi, 38, and Zenel Tusha, 26, were both jailed for 20 months after they pleaded guilty to possession of a Class B drug with intent to supply.

Mirush Tusha, and Petrit Tusha, both aged 23, were each jailed for 19 months for the same offence.

All were of no fixed address.

Judge Jonathan Carroll told the four, who appeared over a videolink from Durham Jail: "There is a well-established and continuing operation of Albanian drug gangs in this area and there comes a point where sentences must have a deterrent element.

"For the avoidance of doubt I do not accept that any of you were trafficked into this business.

"You knew what you were doing, and you were willing participants and each of you stood to make very substantial gain.

"This indeed was a significant scale enterprise concerned with the sale of cannabis onwards to street dealers.

"There is little or no mitigation beyond the guilty pleas."