Drug runner in Swindon swallowed heroin wraps (From Swindon Advertiser)

Drug runner in Swindon swallowed heroin wraps

8:50pm Wednesday 6th March 2013 in News

A DRUG dealer had to be rushed to hospital after he swallowed 15 wraps of heroin when police closed in on him.

Gilbert Waigo, who has been jailed in the past for selling cannabis, gulped down the bags of brown powder as officers caught up with him.

But fearing for the 28-year-old’s safety should the wraps burst, police took him to hospital when he couldn’t bring them straight back up.

Once there he managed to regurgitate the heroin, worth about £150, after drinking salt water.

Now he has been jailed for two years and eight months after admitting he was selling the packages on the streets of Swindon.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, said undercover cops saw drug users emerging from an alleyway where the defendant had been on July 18.

They chased Waigo as he ran to a flat in Radnor Street and grabbed hold of him in the kitchen after following him in to the property.

“He was seen to have put something in his mouth and he indicated he had swallowed ‘10 bags of brown’,” she told Swindon Crown Court.

“He was asked what they were in and he pointed at a blue carrier bag on the counter and said ‘one like that’.”

She said officers were concerned it could cause him harm and he tried to make himself sick by putting his fingers down his throat.

When that didn’t work he was taken to hospital, where he eventually brought up the drugs, which were in 15 blue plastic wraps.

In the flat where he was arrested police found another bag down the side of the sofa containing 10 wraps of crack cocaine worth about £100.

There was also a set of electronic scales on the table and other dealing paraphernalia.

Waigo, of Croydon, south London, pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing class A drugs with intent to supply. The court heard he was jailed at Swindon Crown Court in 2007 after admitting being involved in the trade in cannabis.

Archangelo Power, defending, said his client was being operated as ‘a runner’ by others selling the hard drugs on the streets.

He said he had come to the UK from Rwanda as a youngster after losing his father in the civil war there.

Jailing him, Judge Euan Ambrose said: “You travelled to Swindon from London having been contacted and told you could make money by selling drugs in Swindon.

“You travelled to Swindon in that expectation, where you were provided the drugs which you then sold on the street. That is low level street dealing.

“In terms of aggravating features, this was a calculated piece of behaviour designed for financial gain.

“You travelled a long distance with the intention of committing this offence. Money, or financial profit, was behind it.”