Mariglen Llapushi (Image: Dyfed-Powys Police)
Last Updated: 11 hours ago
A drug dealer who rented a car under a false Italian identity has been jailed for three years after fleeing a police pursuit through Aberystwyth – only to be undone by a small tag hanging from the keys he left behind.
Mariglen Llapushi, a 27-year-old Albanian national, now expects to be deported and separated from his partner and young son, Swansea Crown Court heard.
The pursuit
Late on the night of June 2, an officer patrolling the A487 in Aberystwyth grew suspicious of how fast Llapushi was driving and signalled for him to pull over. Instead, the defendant sped off.
Prosecutor Sian Cutter said: “He was travelling at 40mph, which was over the limit, and when the officer put on his blue lights the defendant accelerated away from him.”
Llapushi eventually stopped on a farm track and ran from the scene. Seven bags of cocaine, worth roughly £280 altogether, were discovered inside the abandoned vehicle.
The keychain clue
The keys, however, had been left in place – and with them, the mistake that sealed his fate.
“The key was still in the ignition and on the keychain was a tag which said ‘Portland Street’,” said Ms Cutter.
Following that lead, the officer headed to Portland Street and spotted a taxi. When he approached to ask whether the driver had seen the man he was chasing, he got an unexpected answer.
“In fact, purely by luck, the defendant was sitting in the passenger seat, and the officer recognised him from the pursuit,” said Ms Cutter.
A carrier bag at Llapushi’s feet held a receipt for the Four Seasons hotel on Portland Street, where he had been staying.
More cocaine buried under a hedge
By the time officers reached his hotel room it had been cleared out, but his phone told a different story. Among his messages was a video he had sent to an accomplice showing himself hiding wraps of cocaine beneath a hedge. An officer recognised the location and recovered 19 wraps of the Class A drug, valued at £760 in total.
Fake ID and a string of previous offences
Llapushi had hired the car using false documents, posing as an Italian man with a different name. He was also banned from the road at the time, having repeatedly driven while disqualified in recent years. In all, he had 15 previous offences on his record, several of them for possessing and producing drugs.
He had already served a four-month prison sentence in 2021 after being caught tending a cannabis farm.
Llapushi admitted possession of cocaine with intent to supply, driving while disqualified and using a false identity document.
Defence
His barrister, Sol Hartley, told the court his client had been exploited since arriving in Britain.
“He knows he will face deportation after being sentenced. It is an all too familiar story. He grew up in Albania and served for 16 months in the army, before travelling to the UK where he anticipated he could work in the construction industry.”
The court heard Llapushi had been smuggled into the country by criminals who then made him work off his debt by looking after a cannabis farm – the offence that led to his 2021 jail term. After his release, Mr Hartley said, he was again pressured into dealing drugs and felt he had little choice.
“He has a partner and three-year-old son in the UK. He struggles to comprehend that he will be deported and have to leave his family behind, which is a far greater punishment than any custodial sentence the court can pass.”
Sentencing
Judge Huw Rees pointed to the run of drug and driving offences Llapushi had committed since leaving prison in 2021.
“The courts have been lenient with you. The courts have tried to help you,” the judge said.
He jailed Llapushi for three years and observed that deportation was likely to follow within that period. Because the defendant was already serving a three-year driving ban, the judge added six penalty points to his licence rather than imposing a fresh disqualification.
