A drug dealer who posed next to a huge pile of cash was caught with a three-month list of sales totalling £11,000, a court heard.
Meshaq Saunders was sent to Swansea by a criminal gang to continue selling heroin and cocaine on the streets when he was wanted by police in London.
The 20-year-old fled the capital after he was identified by an undercover operation and police raided his flat.
His whereabouts were unknown until months later when he was arrested in Swansea following calls from the public.
A subsequent analysis of his phone showed he had been dealing heroin and cocaine in the city for the previous three months.
The 20-year-old was sentenced to five years in prison when he appeared at Swansea Crown Court in the latest in a series of so-called county lines drug dealing convictions involving criminal gangs from big English cities targeting south Wales.
Francis Jones, prosecuting, said between May and June last year Saunders supplied drugs to police officers involved in an undercover operation targeting heroin dealing in the Hackney area of London some eight times.
A warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest but when officers raided his flat he could not be found.
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The court heard Saunders disappeared until February 18 this year when police in Swansea received calls from the public about suspicious activity in the Brynmill and Uplands area.
When officers arrived on the scene they located Saunders at Brynmill park and arrested him.
The court heard the defendant had no drugs on him but he did have almost £1,000 in cash and when officers searched his phone they found numerous text messages about heroin and cocaine dealing along with pictures of the defendant surrounded by piles of money.
Mr Jones said police also recovered a “tick list” from Saunders with details of transactions covering the previous three months and amounting to some £11,000 worth of heroin and cocaine deals.
Saunders, now of no fixed address, admitted 10 counts of supplying Class A drugs, one of offering to supply cannabis, and one of possessing criminal property relating to the £960 in cash.
The court heard London-born Saunders had numerous previous convictions for possessing a bladed article – including two of possessing a knife in a school when he was aged 14 – as well as two for possession of heroin and cocaine with intent to supply.
Stephen Thomas, for Saunders, said his client understood that as a repeat Class A drug dealer he was now subject to the minimum seven-year sentence.
He said his client had grown up in care from the age of 18 months and had been placed with “countless families” over the years. This had resulted in him moving from school to school and falling into bad behaviour and truancy.
The advocate said Saunders had been expelled from school at the age of 14 for carrying a knife and when asked why he had taken the weapon to school had told him: “That’s what people in London do”.
Mr Thomas said the defendant found himself associating with “the wrong crowd” and found dealing a way of making easy cash and that he had been sent to Swansea by a gang to sell on their behalf.
The advocate asked the court to find the circumstances of the case were such that it could pull back from imposing the full minimum sentence.
Recorder Christopher Clee QC described county lines drug dealing as a “scourge” and said the legislation required him to impose a minimum seven-year sentence.
But he said he was “just about persuaded” to reduce the sentence given the defendant’s age and personal circumstances and he jailed him for a total of five years.
The recorder warned the defendant that if he was “foolish” enough to get involved in Class A drug dealing again the sentence he would face would be “significantly longer” than the one just handed down.
