Ten members of a drugs gang which flooded Ipswich and Norwich with crack and heroin have been jailed for a combined total of more than 50 years.

The nine men and teenage boy set up a supply chain of the drugs from their London base to the eastern counties. In addition to Ipswich and Norwich they also targeted Luton and Bedford.

The Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) conducted a covert investigation into the gang with support from Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies and the Metropolitan Police.

The investigation culminated in the seizure of 36,500 individual wraps of heroin and crack cocaine with an estimated street value of £360,500, an imitation Uzi sub-machine pistol and £61,755 in cash.

Abdi Sugulle, 20, Mahad Hassan, 29, and Harry Levett, 20, lived in executive apartments in Westminster, London Bridge and Kew where they masterminded the elaborate ‘county lines drug supply’.

The gang used expensive hire cars to transport the drugs across the eastern region where they would be supplied to drug dealers.

Head of the group, Sugulle would orchestrate the supply lines from his London base. Call data showed he handled around 60,000 calls in just six months.

Below him in the chain were Hassan and Levett, his trusted ‘lieutenants’ who controlled the supply of drugs from safe houses across London.

The rest of the group were used to deliver drugs to further safe houses at the dealer locations in Norwich, Ipswich, Luton and Bedford while also collecting substantial sums of cash - the proceeds from the sale of the drugs.

Sugulle, from Southwark, was sentenced to seven and a half years imprisonment at Luton Crown Court.

Abdi Nurr, 20, from Brentford was jailed for six years and Hassan, from Plumstead, received six years and four months.

Jama Adam, 25, from Abbeywood, was sentenced to six and a half years in jail while Shafic Ali, 27, from Woolwich London received a prison term of seven years and three months.

A 16-year-old from London was given a 12-month youth detention and training order

Ali Haji, 26, from Woolwich, was jailed for seven years, Levett, from Brentford, was given a five year term consecutive to an existing sentence and Spencer Muskia, 19, from Thamesmead, was given four years– also consecutive to an existing sentence.

Finally Aaron Burnett, 22, from Mitcham, was sentenced to three years in prison.

All had admitted conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.