A DRUGS courier caught with £29,000 cash and three-quarters of a kilo of cocaine was working off a debt to an Albanian people smuggling ring.

Now, Maringlen Hysa has been jailed for four years and six months, after the 36-year-old admitted possession with intent to supply cocaine, possession of criminally acquired cash and two counts of identity fraud.

Swindon Crown Court heard the Albanian national was pulled over by police at the Leigh Delamere services on the M4 on June 12. He handed over a forged Italian driving licence and ID card, containing his image but a relative’s name.

Initially arrested for the forged documents, it was only when drugs dogs searched Hysa’s Vauxhall Astra van that police discovered the stashed cocaine.

Prosecuting, Mary Cowe said filling had been removed from the van, to provide a hiding place for drugs and cash: “Put briefly, that van had been adapted in a sophisticated way in order to make it harder to find what was in the back of the van.

“What was found was the 763g of cocaine, divided among three bags.”

Each of the three bags was said by a drugs expert to represent a 250g parcel of the white powder, with the three bags collectively worth around £30,000 to £37,500 on the wholesale market. The drugs’ street value could have been double that.

Also found hidden in the van was £28,980 in cash, divided into bundles of notes. There was specialist mobile phone, worth around £1,000. “The police encounter it among those who wish to encrypt their conversations,” said Ms Cowe.

Fuel receipts discarded in the van suggested it had recently been driven to London, Reading, Brighton and Aldershot.

Ms Cowe said: “The prosecution points to these receipts, which indicate the van had been travelling around for some time before it was stopped by the police.

“The fact the van had been kitted out professionally and the defendant had been equipped with an expensive phone. The fact the defendant had armed himself with false ID and the fact he was trusted with three-quarters of a kilo of cocaine.

“The prosecution says he’s more than a mere courier and he must have had a level of knowledge of the scale of the operation.”

Huw Bowden, defending, said his client was of previous good character and was picked up on his first journey as a courier for the drugs gang.

The court heard Hysa had incurred a £15,000 debt to gangsters who had smuggled him from Albanian to the UK around nine-months ago.

He claimed to have been working off that debt at a London car wash, but was offered the chance to reduce that debt by £500 and earn an extra £150 by transporting the gang’s drugs to Bristol.

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Peter Crabtree said: “You were told by the group when about £11,000 was still outstanding [on the debt] that if you didn’t pay the debt you would be harmed. You took that as a genuine threat, at least to the extent that you believed those who were making it would not take kindly if you refused to do what they said.”

However, Judge Crabtree added: “You were, whatever the pressure, an important courier, trusted not only with a substantial amount of cash, but also a considerable amount of cocaine and equipped with a hi-tech phone and a car which had a sophisticated hide.”

Hysa was sentenced to four years and six months for the drugs charge, to 16 months for possession of the criminally-acquired cash, six months for the false ID card and four months for the false driving licence. His sentence is to be served concurrently.

“It is a matter for the Secretary of State as to whether you are deported,” Judge Crabtree told the Albanian national.