'Leading role' in county lines gang jailed for five-and-a-half years

Nleya Lang of Weston Road in Birmingham, ran the "Rocky Line" county line phone number in the town, Shrewsbury Crown Court was told on Wednesday.

The 26-year-old, who had 15 previous convictions for drug dealing, played a "leading role" in the operation and was out on licence when he was found to be running the Rocky Line.

Mr Robert Edwards KC, prosecuting, told the court that the drug operation run by Lang was active between June and August last year.

He said: "The defendant was the holder of the phone and oversaw the supply of drugs from the West Midlands to the streets of Shrewsbury."

He said that the line was active in June 2022, there was some disruption in July, but it was reactivated in August 2022.

"During the whole of time of the Rocky Line operation, the defendant controlled the phone number and sent out messages, putting respondents in touch with street dealer," said Mr Edwards.

He added that following police surveillance, a hire car rented by Lang was seen dropping off a female street dealer in Shrewsbury. The woman was later seen supplying drugs to three people in the town.

Following a raid Lang's Birmingham home, a Nokia mobile phone identified as the Rocky Line was found, along with £3,140 in cash, 6.3 grams of cocaine, 86 bags of cannabis as well as drug paraphernalia including digital scales and gloves.

Following a later raid in Moneybrook Way in Shrewsbury that police had associated with Lang through his phone, police found 17 wraps of heroin and 22 wraps of cocaine. Two males not associated with the address were also found in Moneybrook Way, one aged just 16, who were found later to have been recruited by Lang to be street dealers in Shrewsbury.

Lang pleaded guilty to four charges of supplying Class A drugs and one charge of supplying cannabis at an earlier hearing.

In his defence, Lang had told police after his arrest that when he had been released from prison a drug debt had increased from £500 to £2,000 and he was given the phone by other drug dealers to complete street deals. No other members of the Rocky Lines gang has been arrested to date.

In jailing Lang for 2,044 days in prison, Judge David Hale told him: "You are only 26-years-old and here you are facing a minimum sentence for your third class A drug supply offence."

He added that Lang had taken to drug dealing with "enthusiasm" by recruiting others who he had taken "on the same helter skelter" of supplying Class-A drugs.

"This was a county line that did not last very long, but you were recruiting. Fortunately it was nipped in the bud otherwise you would be facing a much longer sentence."