Weed News: Cannabis gangsters caught after posting selfies with bags of dope online

Zakaria Chentouf, 24, holding money (Picture: PA)

Members of a drug-dealing gang who posed for photos with a stash of £50 notes totalling thousands of pounds and pillow cases stuffed with drugs have been handed jail terms.

The five men were today sentenced to a total of four-and-a-half years in prison for their parts in the organised ring dealing cannabis on the streets of Ladbroke Grove in West London.

Scotland Yard detectives uncovered the ring while investigating a spate of violent attacks linked to a turf war which had erupted in the area at the end of last year.

Photos of gang members Zakaria Chentouf, 24, and Sophian Chhayra, also 24, posing with £3,000 in stacks of £50 notes and bags of cannabis were recovered on mobile phones following their arrests.

Sentencing the five Lord Judge McGregor Johnson said: ‘This conspiracy was over a six week period and looking at the overall picture was a highly active conspiracy dealing to many customers each day.

‘This was sustained high level drug dealing in terms of cannabis.’

An undercover operation by police between March and May this year recorded dozens of deals carried out on the Wornington Estate.

Fouad Soussi, aged 20, who was born profoundly deaf, was the principal street dealer in the operation exchanging drugs for cash in plain sight from his balcony and nearby streets, Isleworth Crown Court heard.

Defending him Alison Morgan told the judge he had become desperate to make his own money after struggling to find work because of his disability.

He was supplied the drugs by Chentouf, 24, described as the ‘head of the conspiracy’.

Ahmed Mahomud, 20, and Chhayra, acted as middlemen and runners, Tyrone Silcott, prosecuting, told the court.

All four pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply drugs last month.

The court heard a fifth man, Ahmed Mahomud’s brother Yousif, 19, was only involved as a runner in one drug deal.

He pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of class B drugs,

Today Soussi, from the Wornington Estate, was sentenced to 15 months detention in a young offenders institution and Chentouf, from Humber Drive in Kensal Green, was handed a 16 month prison term.

Mahomud, from St Mark’s Road in North Kensington, and Chhayra, from the Wornington Estate, were each sentenced to 10 months imprisonment.

Yousif, who lived with his brother, was sentenced to 12 weeks in a young offenders institute and had an eight week suspended sentence activated.