A woman who was a teenager when she ran a county line drug operation and exploited other youngsters into becoming dealers has been jailed for five years.
Saleha Saed, 21, ran the so-called Fat Boy line, which brought three kilos of street heroin and crack cocaine from London to Great Yarmouth.
Norwich Crown Court heard she was aged just 18 and 19 when she controlled other gang members, including Nathan Si, who she was in a relationship with, and Tremayne Ndikumana.
She booked hotel rooms from where the drugs were prepared and also recruited "youngsters" to "do her bidding for her".
READ MORE: Norfolk county lines duo from 'Fat Boy' gang jailed
Both teenagers, Ndikumana had been the holder of the phone line under her instruction, while Si had operated as a "babysitter" for the drugs, packing them and looking after them.
Matthew Edwards, prosecuting, said she had taken over running of the line from another former boyfriend who was much older.
But he said texts from phones seized during a police operation to disrupt the line that saw her arrested in June 2022 showed she had become central to its operation and was now in charge.
In one message to her ex-partner she had boasted to him “you’re deluding yourself that the line is yours when it is truly mine”.
Other messages included disagreements over how lower members of the operation were selling drugs and criticism of the prices being charged by a street seller known by the nickname ‘Tiny’.
'TRUSTED LIEUTENANT'
Police also discovered messages linking her to human trafficking with one talking about “bringing in one of the young ones”.
She had expected to make a considerable amount of money from the operation of the line, the court heard.
Saed, originally from East London, previously pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs between July 2021 and June 2022.
She also admitted an offence of arranging or facilitating the travel of another person with a view to exploitation.
Sentencing her to five years imprisonment to be served in a young offenders institution as she had been aged under 20 at the time, Judge Anthony Bate said it had been a "large scale" drug conspiracy.
He said she had also arranged and facilitated the travel of teenagers who were exploited and forced to sell drugs.
However, he said she had not been instrumental in setting up the line.
“Her role was significant and she had managed others but she had been a trusted lieutenant rather than establishing the line,” he added.
TINY AND HIS 'MAD NUMBERS'
Gordon Carse, mitigating, said: “It is not accepted that she was at the top of the enterprise, albeit she was at an elevated level.”
Messages, including one stating that ‘Tiny’ used to do “mad numbers” but that this had dropped off since she took over the line, suggested others were still involved in running the operation.
She had been exploited herself and was only months older than the people she was said to have trafficked into exploitation, he added.
“Common sense tells you she did not set up this line, she stepped into it and was groomed to do so,” he said.
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Ndikumana had earlier been sentenced to four years detention in a young offenders institution and Si three years and four months.
The court had heard Ndikumana had been recruited through peer pressure and had a "chaotic" lifestyle as a care leaver.
Si got involved in drug dealing through the possibility of making money as well as naivety and had been acting under the direction of Saed.
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