Norfolk officers found £160k worth of cannabis in car

Arian Mustafaj, 44, an Amazon delivery driver, was driving a Ford Fiesta car at Fuller's Hill, Great Yarmouth, when it was pulled over by police who could "smell cannabis coming from inside the vehicle".

Fuller's Hill roundabout in Great Yarmouth (Image: Newsquest)Norwich Crown Court heard officers found two holdalls within the vehicle - one in the back and one in the boot - inside which were vacuum-packed packages of cannabis.

Norwich Crown Court (Image: Peter Walsh, Newsquest)Martin Ivory, prosecuting, said one of the bags contained 13 packages and the other three.

He said each of the packages weighed a kilo with the 16 kilos of cannabis said to be worth somewhere in the region of £160,000.

Following his arrest on January 29 this year, Mr Ivory said Mustafaj was interviewed and said he expected to be paid £1,000 for couriering the drugs.

Mustafaj, an Albanian national who had collected the drugs to take back to London, appeared in court having admitted possession with intent to supply class B drugs.

Arian Mustafaj (Image: Norfolk Constabulary)Mr Ivory said Mustafaj, who spoke through an interpreter, had a sole role as a "delivery driver" but must have had a "significant degree of trust" put in him to carry the drugs.

Jailing him for 28 months, Recorder Michael Turner said Mustafaj "must've been aware by the sheer weight of one of the bags, which must have weighed something in excess of 10 kilos, that you were transporting a significant quantity of drugs from Norfolk to London".

Michael Cogan, mitigating, said it takes "courage" to plead guilty, particularly when it is likely you will be going to prison and, in his case, be deported.

He said Mustafaj, who worked as a delivery driver for Amazon earning about £2,000 a month with bills totalling about £1,950, was a courier who had been acting under direction.