Drug dealer who sold crack cocaine and Ecstasy in Ripon and Harrogate is jailed

Egzon Miftari, 23, worked in tandem with another named man to peddle the deadly drugs in villages and county towns such as Ripon, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Michael Smith said that Miftari, from Leeds, was arrested on a country lane in Sharow, near Ripon, in October 2020. He was in the passenger seat and his sidekick was the driver.

Miftari was found with 58 MDMA tablets, equivalent to about 17g of the Ecstasy-type drug, worth just under £300.

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Officers also found a package of heroin and crack cocaine, worth a few hundred pounds, hidden inside his underwear. They also discovered £500 cash in the central console of the vehicle.

A mobile phone seized from Miftari’s cohort showed text messages on which Class A drugs had been advertised for sale and a contacts list containing the names of “known drug users in North Yorkshire”.

Mr Smith said Miftari’s partner-in-crime was running a “County Lines-type” drug-dealing operation, crossing county lines from Leeds into North Yorkshire to supply addicts.

Miftari got involved in the operation and may have been hired as a “bit of muscle”, the court heard.

He admitted three counts of possessing a Class A drug with intent to supply and possessing criminal cash.

He appeared for sentence today (Tuesday, September 13) when the court was told about his appalling record for violence and damaging property, although there were no previous drug offences on his rap sheet.

Miftari was already serving a four-year prison sentence for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, making threats to kill, knife possession and breaching a restraining order in January and February 2021, which occurred after the drug offences.

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Defence barrister Eddison Flint claimed that Miftari had been “roped into” the dealing enterprise and wanted to get back into work as a bricklayer.

He said that Miftari, currently residing at Wealstun prison in Wetherby, had just two weeks to run of his current jail sentence.

Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, told Miftari: “The peddling of these kinds of drugs kills people and creates crime, and this was travelling crime from Leeds to the county town of Ripon, or (other) county towns, and you (were) selling these drugs to people in the villages… of North Yorkshire.”

Miftari will serve half of the two-year jail sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.

His named co-accused was charged with the same offences. His case was transferred to Leeds Crown Court for sentence and to tie up with an additional firearms offence.