A 25-year-old who became involved in the supply of drugs to repay a debt he owed to traffickers who brought him to the UK has been jailed for 28 months.

Erion Hoxha was driving an uninsured Audi along Bramford Road in Ipswich last month when he was stopped by police and detained for a drug search, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

Hoxha told the officers they had got the wrong man and when he was physically restrained after refusing to be handcuffed he had assaulted a police officer, causing a cut to his hand and bruising.

Nineteen bags of cocaine, a Greek driving licence, a mobile phone and £285 cash were discovered during a search when he was stopped and when his accommodation was searched a further 19 bags of cocaine were found in a bedroom.

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When his phone was analysed by experts it was found to contain messages showing his involvement in the supply of cocaine using the postcode delivery method.

Messages on the phone showed that the day before Hoxha’s arrest 39 bags of cocaine had been delivered to 26 customers with a total value of  £1,530.

Ipswich Star: Hoxha was arrested in IpswichHoxha was arrested in Ipswich (Image: Suffolk police)

Hoxha, of Beech Road, Ipswich, admitted possessing cocaine with intent to supply, possessing an identity document with improper intention, assaulting an emergency worker and possession of criminal property, namely £285 cash.

Sentencing him, Judge Nicola Talbot-Hadley said he had been brought to the UK illegally and as a result he couldn’t work legally and had no recourse to public funds.

She said that when Hoxha's cash-in-hand work on a building site dried up he’d become involved in the supply of drugs to repay the Albanian traffickers who’d brought him to the UK.