A Norwich county lines drugs conspiracy was run from inside a prison cell with an inmate co-ordinating the operation using an illegal phone, a court has heard.
Seyi Ani-Agbaje, 27, was serving a sentence from HMP The Mount in Hertfordshire at the time he was co-ordinating a conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine in the Norwich area between September 2019 and June 2020.
King's Lynn Crown Court heard Ani-Agbaje was at the "very top of the conspiracy" which was being conducted while he was serving a sentence for supplying drugs.
Edward Renvoize, prosecuting, said: "It's quite clear he was running the conspiracy from his prison cells."
The court was told the defendant was directing Sofia El Yamani who was heavily involved in the conspiracy, and directing others, outside prison.
Mr Renvoize said that during 2020 the cell of Ani-Agbaje was searched and a mobile phone was recovered.
He said this defendant and Al Amani "were in contact on numerous occasions" throughout the conspiracy which continued "despite a violent attack" on drug user Jamie Mooney.
The attack in May 2020 was carried out by another member of the gang, Rahein Phillips but despite this attack Mr Renvoize said both Ani-Agbaje and El Yamani did everything to ensure the conspiracy continued.
Ani-Agbaje, of HMP The Mount, appeared for sentence on Friday (May 20) having previously admitted two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs and also one count of possessing a mobile phone in prison.
Jailing Ani-Agbaje for 10 years, Judge Andrew Shaw said it was a "significant aggravating feature of this conspiracy that you were running it from prison using an illicit phone".
He said that the planning for this offence happened two months after he was arrested for his part in another drugs supply offence and continued after he was sentenced for those offences.
Judge Shaw said it did not speak very highly of HM Prison service that the defendant was able to do this while in prison but insisted it was "an uphill battle to keep drugs and illicit items, like phones, out of prisons".
He told Ani-Agbaje he was at "the very top of this enterprise" and that he had "blood on your hands" following the "near fatal stabbing" of drug user Mr Mooney by Phillips.
Judge Shaw had "no doubt that he armed himself under your instruction" and was told to "use violence, even fatal violence" to "protect the profit" of this drugs line.
Rishy Panesar, representing Ani-Agbaje's, said his greatest mitigation was his guilty pleas.
He said the defendant has a two-year-old son who he has only seen on three occasions while in prison.
Mr Panesar said he has completed courses in prison and is focused on "living a crime-free life when he's released".
He said he was very upset with himself on finding himself where he does.
It is the latest in a string of sentences handed to gang members involved in the supply of heroin and cocaine in Norwich between July 2019 and June 2020.
In April El Yamani, then 24 and from Clapton, was jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine between July 2019 and June 2020.
Other gang members previously sentenced include Rahein Phillips who was given an extended 21-year sentence made up of 16 years custody and five years on licence in February last year.
It came after he was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and having an offensive weapon.
Phillips, then 25 and from London, had previously admitted conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine.
Sentenced alongside Philips were Trae Henry, then 25, and Emmanuel Onzi, then 24, both of London, who both admitted conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine.
Henry was jailed for a total of five years and three months, while Onzi was jailed for three years and eight months.
Conspiracy from a prison cell
The class A drugs operation run by Agbaje from a prison cell is not the first time a serving prisoner has masterminded a major drugs conspiracy in Norfolk.
In 2017 convicted killer Liam Duffy had a further nine years added to his 20-year sentence for the revenge killing of rival gang leader Liam Smith - thought to be linked to the Rhys Jones murder investigation - in Liverpool in 2006.
Duffy, then 36, was serving time at Buckley Hall prison in Rochdale when he organised a multi-million pound drug-running operation between his home city of Liverpool and Norwich.
The conspiracy was uncovered when Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) recovered 2kg of heroin with an estimated street value of up to £200,000 when they pulled over a van in Norwich.
Following the find, in August 2014, Tony Rimmer, then 30, and Carl Fairfield, then 39, both from Liverpool, and Rocky Gamble, then 31, from Norwich, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
The Old Bailey in London heard how Duffy pulled the strings of the operation from his prison cell using a banned mobile phone.
William Carter, prosecuting, said: "He is the individual who is putting the two ends, Liverpool and Norwich, together. He was the common link. The Crown say he was organising matters."
Rimmer, formerly of Pethrack Road, Liverpool, and Fairfield, formerly of Totnes Road, Liverpool, both admitted conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Mr Carter said that Rimmer and Fairfield were at the Liverpool end of the operation and they played "significant roles" by delivering the drugs to Norfolk and then picking up the cash for payment.
He said that Fairfield would use hire vehicles to drive to Norfolk to make the deliveries.
He said at the final raid in August 2014 at an address which was being used in Avenue Road in Norwich, police recovered £39,825 in cash.
Judge Anthony Bate ruled Duffy had played a leading role in the conspiracy following a day-long hearing, and handed him an extra nine years.
He told Duffy: "You were an organiser of this drugs conspiracy. You played a significant role."
Gang member shot dead as part of feud
Liam Smith, a prominent member of the Norris Green-based Strand gang, was shot dead outside Altcourse Prison in Fazakerley, Liverpool, in 2006.
Eleven-year-old Rhys Jones was shot dead on his way home from football practice on the one-year anniversary of Mr Smith's death.
Liam Duffy, was convicted of manslaughter following a trial was in 2007 and was one of four Croxteth crew found guilty over the killing.
The verdicts came just days before Rhys was killed in a pub car park in Croxteth Park as he wandered into the line of fire between the waring Strand gang and the rival Croxteth Crew.
In 2008 Sean Mercer was jailed for a minimum of 22 years after the then 18-year-old from Croxteth was found guilty of the murder of tragic schoolboy Rhys.
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