TWO county lines dealers who forced a customer to work for them after savagely beating him have been jailed.

Londoners Moteeb Ahmad, 23, and Anas Elorby, 22, set up a drugs line in Southend sending out almost 8,000 text messages advertising the availability of class A drugs between March and June 2021.

Early into their operation, the pair known as cruds (Ahmad) and A1 (Elorby) to customers, accused one of their buyers of stealing drugs from them.

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The victim had visited a friend’s house where the drug dealers were present.

Shortly after he left, the victim received a phone call from Ahmad demanding to know “where his stuff was” – accusing him of stealing drugs, the court was told.

In a sinister and thinly veiled threat, Ahmad told the victim he and Elorby “knew where he lived”.

Believing it would be an “admission of guilt” if he ignored their threats, the victim agreed to return to the house to discuss the missing drugs, the prosecution said.

On arrival, he was set upon in the kitchen. Ahmad threw the first punch, knocking him sideways into a worktop.

Elorby then joined the assault, hitting the victim repeatedly as Ahmad struck him with a walking stick, the court was told.

To appease his assailants, the victim agreed to pay back the value of the missing drugs.

However, he did not have enough money to pay the debt; the dealers told him he must work for them to pay off the debt, delivering “reloads” of drugs to their runners on the streets.

On August 24, 2021, police officers raided a property in Chestnut Grove, Southend, where they arrested the two dealers and seized drugs, phones, and cash.

In her sentencing remarks, Judge Samantha Cohen said: “You accused the victim of having stolen drugs from you. He denied that, and the pair of you visited considerable violence upon him.

“When he didn’t have any more money, he was made to work as a small cog in the Trouble line, delivering drugs from you two to runners on the street.”

Ahmad, of Grosvenor Court, Morden, was jailed for five years after pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and being concerned in supplying a controlled drug of class A to another.

Elorby, of no fixed address, was sentenced to 53 months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to the same charges.