A DRUG dealer who convinced his brother to join him in the cannabis business to help pay off a massive debt to suppliers has been jailed. 

Jacob Ismail, 29, got his older brother Ali, 31, involved in a major drug dealing gang after finding himself fall £130,000 into debt with drug bosses higher up the chain.

Jacob Ismail had found himself “in danger” according to his defence counsel, after trying to escape the drug dealing businesses and abandoning a profitable line in 2019.

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Drug bosses had put pressure on him to return to the line in order to pay off the debt, the court was told.

Facing the considerable debt, he drafted in his brother Ali to help run the line, purchasing large quantities of cannabis from suppliers and then distributing them to runners to deliver around Southend.

The pair, who according to police intel ran the line from December 2019 until their arrest in November, were turning over £133,000 a year, the court heard.

Coordinated police raids on the day of their arrests found £9,600 hidden in a shoebox under a bed at Jacob Ismail’s home in Raphaels, Basildon.

At Ali Ismail’s Southchurch Road, Southend, home, police found a further £10,900.

The pair were linked by police to Eglentina Xhixha, 25, who was jailed in June after officers found 20.6 kilograms of cannabis – with a street value of £140,000 – at her home in Valkyrie Road, Westcliff.

Judge Andrew Hurst said: “The operation was relatively sophisticated, you used phone for marketing messages and understood the need to change phones to avoid detection.

“Effectively this was a big business… You were making a lot of money, or if true, you were paying off a debt of a considerable amount of money to those higher up the chain who have yet to be identified."

The pair were jailed at Basildon Crown Court on Tuesday, July 7 having admitted being concerned in supplying a controlled drug of class b and possessions of criminal property at an earlier hearing.

Jacob Ismail was sentenced to three years imprisonment while Ali Ismail was jailed for two years and eight months.