Two drug dealers jailed

Rashid Hussain and Mohammed Yasin

Two drug dealers, Rashid Hussain (23/6/87) of Trafalgar Street, and Mohammed Yasin (3/06/77) of Ditton Mead Close, who set up drugs 'hotlines' on their mobile phones have been jailed.

At Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court today, Hussain was jailed for six years, four months and Mohammed Yasin was jailed for five years, eight months - both pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to conspiracy to supply class a drugs.

The pair were caught after officers proved their seized mobiles had received hundreds of calls from heroin and crack cocaine addicts.

The pair, who both had previous convictions for drug dealing, were caught using a combination of old-fashioned policing and detailed analysis of mobile phones. 

In early March 2013 Hussain was spotted by officers driving away from a number of people who looked like they could be heroin addicts.

He sped off from police but was followed and later caught. His car was searched but no drugs were found and he was released.

On 22 March he was seen with Yasin driving a VW Golf 2.0 tdi. Again, they were followed but they sped away. A short time later Hussain's car was seen parked near his house on Trafalgar Street with the engine running and Yasin was standing next to a nearby roadsign, appearing to fish around for something on the floor.

Hussain panicked and ran off while Yasin was arrested. Officers recovered two white balls and two separate packages containing drugs for nearly 30 deals. They also found five phones, two of which were dealer phones, one of which was falsely registered to a professional footballer.

While Hussain was in custody an unknown woman contacted the network provider of Hussain's drug dealer phone and attempted to report it lost/stolen in a bid to re-activate the highly prized drug dealer line.

One of the phones was later attributed to Yasin. It had a hotline, known as the Wolf line, on which numerous local drug addicts would order drugs. This Wolf Line received 280 calls/texts from 40 people in just eight days.

Hussain's phone received nearly 2,100 calls/texts from 210 different numbers over the course of a month.

PC Gabriel Gibson, based at Rochdale, said: "This case highlights the greed that motivates drug dealers.

"Both offenders were on their third strike having been convicted of drug dealing before, and had clearly not reformed their ways. Now they both have several years to decide on their future paths."