5 days ago
Drug dealers jailed for holding Cardiff teenager captive
Two drug dealers who held a Cardiff teenager captive and forced him to package up crack-cocaine and heroin have been jailed.
Abdullahi Dable, 26, and Malik Touray, 20, appeared at Cardiff Crown Court on Monday (July 4th) and were sentenced to a total of eight years.
The victim, who was 16 at the time and therefore cannot be named, had been reported missing by his family on February 13th - four days before he was found on February 17th.
He was made to tell his family that he was working on a building site for a week in Bristol, but they had concerns and contacted South Wales Police to report him missing.
The victim was being held in a London flat, forced to sort drugs for street deals.
Abdulahi Dable and Malik Touray had taxied the teenager from Cardiff to London and threatened to harm him if he spoke to anybody else about what he was doing or tried to leave, even to buy food, which instead was delivered to him.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police were looking for somebody else when they found the teenager. As they entered the flat, they found him locked in a room along with piles of heroin on a coffee table.
When the circumstances around him being in London came to light, South Wales Police launched an investigation into his exploitation.
The police investigation linked devices belonging to both Dable and Touray to a series of exchanges between them and the victim.
During the boy's journey to London, Dable, under the pseudo name 'Billy', instructed him to download the Telegram app, which would be used for future contact.
During a Facetime contact, Dable warned the teenager to follow instructions to avoid getting hurt. There was also evidence they had tried to recruit a number of other vulnerable teenagers from Cardiff.
Both men were arrested and charged with conspiring to arrange or facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation and conspiring to supply crack cocaine and heroin.
Abdullahi Dable was jailed for four years and six months, and Malik Touray was jailed for three years and six months in a young offender institution.
