Wirral chip shop owner jailed for dealing drugs after being caught with photos on own mobile phone

Mar 10 2010 by Ben Rossington, Birkenhead News

A WIRRAL chip shop owner was jailed after being caught with pictures of himself counting thousands of pounds of drug money taken on his own mobile phone.

Eric Kocabey, 34, was arrested and jailed for 12 years after Customs officers at Manchester Airport intercepted an innocent-looking fire which had £600,000 of heroin stuffed in the back.

Liverpool crown court heard the 11kg of drugs were swapped for decoy packages and surveillance officers watched as the fire was delivered to Kocabey’s home in Patterson Street, Birkenhead, last October.

Anne Whyte, prosecuting, said that after the Turkish former asylum seeker, given British citizenship in 2008, came home from work clutching a tool box, police raided the address and found him dismantling the fire to get at the drugs.

The dad-of-one was arrested and several mobile phones seized.

Sentencing Kocabey to 12 years for conspiring to supply Class A drugs and five years, to run at the same time, for being involved in the production of cannabis, Mr Recorder David Turner QC said: “You came here as an asylum seeker 10 years ago. You were naturalised in June 2008 as a British citizen.

“You have repaid the hospitality of this country by becoming involved very substantially in the drugs trade.

“You were not a foot soldier. You were a senior officer in this.”