A drug dealer sent from London to “cuckoo” a Dundee flat has been jailed for 32 months.
Mousa Kamara, who is originally from the UK’s capital, was snared by police on December 3 last year after an intelligence operation led to concerns for the safety of those living in a property on Tweed Crescent.
The officers were investigating increasing incidents of so-called “cuckooing” in the city, which sees thugs use violence and intimidation to take over people’s homes in order to use them as safe houses for drug dealing.
Police Scotland Chief Superintendent Andrew Todd last year warned English-based organised crime groups are travelling to Scotland to sell class A drugs using the tactic.
Kamara, 25, was stopped and searched outside the house and found to have more than £1000 in his possession, as well as crack cocaine worth £260 and heroin in his boxer shorts worth between £105 and £110.
Police also seized a mobile phone and several sim cards which were found to have an a large number of of text messages sent to lengthy distribution lists, offering the drugs.
Defence lawyer Douglas McConnell said Kamara’s family, who were immigrants, had disowned him and he feared returning to London where drug dealers could intimidate him.
He said: “He is not the brains behind this outfit.
“He is clearly a young man with a difficult past. He was essentially put on a coach or bus to do this because of the debts he had in London.”
Kamara, who has previous convictions for drug possession and drug dealing, including a 30-month prison sentence, admitted being concerned in the supply of the Class A drugs heroin and cocaine.
Sheriff Lorna Drummond said she was satisfied the threshold for a custodial sentence had been more than met.
She said: “It’s one thing to be put on a bus but another to occupy a house. There is real concern about this (cuckooing) in Dundee.
“In my view it’s an aggravated feature that you were occupying a house with vulnerable drug users.
“These are very serious offences and all the more so because of your previous convictions of a similar nature. That causes me great concern.”
She jailed him for 32 months, reduced from 48 months, backdated to December 4.
