Two Albanian drug couriers were caught red handed after travelling from London in a taxi to drop a suitcase full of cannabis outside a Norwich hotel.
Shyqyri Laci, 23, and Valmir Laci, 19, were arrested when police were tipped off by alert staff at the Oaklands Hotel on Yarmouth Road.
Norwich Crown Court was told the suspicious bag left outside a back door to the hotel was found packed with foil bags full of about six kilos of cannabis destined for collection by drug dealers.
Oliver Haswell, prosecuting, said: “These two young men were bringing a significant amount of cannabis to Norfolk. What would have become of it after it was left at this location we can only speculate.”
He said by chance police had been at the hotel on unrelated matters.
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CCTV captured Shyqyri Laci dropping the red suitcase outside the hotel’s vegetable store with Valmir Laci seen in the background.
Both appeared to be following instructions on a phone, said Mr Haswell.
They were arrested getting back into an Uber taxi that they had travelled in from London to Norfolk.
Both men, Albanian nationals who have addresses in Holloway in London and Kingston on Thames, had been on remand in prison since pleading guilty to possession with intent to supply a class B drug.
The court was told this was greater than the guideline sentence for the offence.
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Recorder Richard Conley told them: “You have had a very rude awakening in what happens to people who get involved in supplying drugs.”
Defence counsel for both men argued short jail sentences would avoid them being punished twice.
But Recorder Conley imposed 12 month community orders requiring them to carry out rehabilitation days to address their drug use.
“You were a small but very important function as part of an organised criminal enterprise. You acted as paid couriers, transporting quantities of cannabis and paid with drugs for your own personal consumption.”
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