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A drug dealer who hid a handgun and 13 kilos of cocaine with a street value of £700,000 in his wardrobe has been jailed.
Albanian national Irakli Rustemi, 33, was stopped by armed Cambridgeshire Police officers in a white Citroen DS3 on the A10 at Buntingford.
Detectives had received intelligence that those inside the car had access to a firearm.
Checks established that Rustemi was an absconder from Immigration Enforcement with no leave to remain in the UK.
Officers searched the vehicle and seized a key from the central console, which opened a chalet-style apartment in the garden of a house in Penton Drive, Cheshunt in October last year.
Inside a wardrobe, a 9mm Makarov self-loading pistol and six rounds of ammunition had been wrapped in a towel and placed there along with the Class drugs.
Rustemi, from Hertfordshire, was being investigated by officers from the Organised Crime Partnership – a specialist unit comprised of Metropolitan Police and National Crime Agency officers.
He was arrested and charged with firearms, ammunition and drugs possession offences.
Rustemi pleaded guilty at St Albans Crown Court and was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment at the same court on Wednesday.
Andrew Tickner, from the Organised Crime Partnership, said: “The OCP’s primary mission is to protect the public from dangerous offenders like Irakli Rustemi, whose crime group has now been dismantled.
“The serious criminality he was involved in fuels violence, intimidation and exploitation in communities, with the supply of drugs and firearms often inherently linked.
“Our commitment to pursuing the most harmful criminals is unwavering, and we will continue to bring them to justice for their crimes.”
