Brazen Albanian drug dealer who posed flaunting £250k cash from heroin sales is allowed to stay in UK
AN ALBANIAN drug dealer who flaunted £250,000 in cash made from selling heroin has been allowed to stay in the UK.
Olsi Beheluli, who was sentenced to 11 years behind bars in 2015, has been told he won't be deported.
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The Albanian national, who arrived in England when he was nine-years-old, was caged after cops found him with eight kilograms of high-purity heroin.
Beheluli, 33, played a "senior role" in the drug ring but, The Home Office and National Crime Agency (NCA) were informed he has to stay in the UK, as reported by The Telegraph.
Officials were trying to deport the former model just eight months before his arrest in 2015.
The National Crime Agency found a picture of him surrounded by an estimated £250,000 after raids in London.
Beheluli was later found guilty of conspiring to supply class A drugs and sentenced at Blackfriars Crown Court.
He appeared alongside fellow gang members Besim Topalli, then 29, and Azem Proshka, then 23.
It was previously reported Proshka and Topalli would be deported after they serve ten years in prison.
The duo admitted conspiring to supply drugs, money laundering and possessing fake ID documents.
National Crime Agency branch commander Oliver Higgins said: "Beheluli seemed to enjoy the high life and gambling with the money he made from drug dealing, but in the end his luck run out.
"These men were involved in supplying significant quantities of high-purity class A drugs, as demonstrated by the value of the cash, cocaine and heroin we have seized from them.
"But they were unaware that they were being watched by the NCA, and their arrest and subsequent conviction should have the wider criminal fraternity looking over their shoulders."
Home Office officials as well as the NCA, previously argued must Beheluli have been operating high up within the criminal organisation to be trusted with such large sums of cash.
But a lower-tier tribunal judge threw out this allegation due to a lack of physical evidence or witness testimony.
Beheluli arrived in the UK in November 2000, when his father claimed asylum.
His father's applications were originally rejected, but in 2006 they were granted discretionary leave to remain - which later became indefinite leave to remain.
Beheluli was granted British citizenship in April 2014, but caught with the drugs and wads of cash by October.
The Home Office tired to deport him and argued he had lied on his citizenship forms when he stated there was nothing 'which reflected adversely on his character'.
They claimed Beheluli must have held a "senior role" within the drug dealing enterprise.
The court was told by the Home Office: 'It is beyond logic to accept that [he] would be trusted with such a consignment of drugs if [he was] not already involved in the supply of Class A drugs.'
However, the lower tier tribunal ruled that there was insufficient evidence to reach such a conclusion.
The tribunal ruled: 'There is, for example, no surveillance or other evidence from the NCA and there is no opinion evidence from a police officer, for example, to support the suggestion that only a senior and trusted member of an organised criminal gang would be entrusted with such a quantity of drugs.
'There was no evidence of sufficient cogency to establish that the appellant had been involved in criminality at the time that he said that there was nothing adverse to declare about his character.'
However, the upper tribunal rejected this and has scheduled a re-hearing.
It ruled: 'Whether or not there was a statement from a police officer, and whether or not there was further evidence from the NCA, that view was deserving of respect and was capable of supporting the common-sense stance of the Secretary of State.'
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