NCA prove convicted drug trafficker was not a slavery victim

31 Aug 2018 05:04 PM

A lying drugs trafficker whose conviction was quashed after she claimed to be a slavery victim has been jailed after National Crime Agency investigators proved she was a willing member of an Albanian organised crime group.

Marsela Kreka, 31, was jailed for eight years in June 2017 after NCA investigators arrested her and fellow Albanian Artan Markaj, 23, following a drugs handover in Barnet, north London.

She and Markaj were in a Mini Cooper, driven by Kreka, which contained a 1kg block of high purity cocaine wrapped in a sock hidden under the passenger seat.

During her trial Kreka ran a defence that she was trafficked into the UK and forced to commit crime as a modern slavery and human trafficking victim (MSHT) – a statutory defence under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The Jury did not believe her and found her guilty. 

But her conviction was quashed in April this year over the interpretation of where the burden of proof lay under the 2015 act, and a retrial was ordered.

When Kreka was initially arrested she refused to provide pin details for her mobile phone.

She claimed the handset contained pictures of her being sexually abused by traffickers and her family being threatened at gun point.

Due to Kreka’s claim that she had been trafficked, NCA officers kept working to bypass her phone pin.

What was discovered on the phone was at odds with her assertion that she was a victim of trafficking and in fact showed the opposite. 

They also discovered evidence of Kreka texting people that she was in the UK to get her “papers” and saying she would even marry an Englishman if she had to.

Following the painstaking investigation carried out by NCA officers, Kreka pleaded guilty to drugs trafficking and possession of false documents at Wood Green Crown Court and was jailed for seven years.

NCA senior investigating officer Kevin Gee said: “Kreka sought to avoid prosecution by stating she was a victim of modern slavery and human and trafficking. 

“It was a wicked lie from a drugs courier who cynically tried to take advantage of legislation designed to protect society’s most vulnerable and exploited people, by claiming she was one of them.

“Combating MSHT is an NCA and policing priority.

“The NCA and UK law enforcement take trafficking and slavery victims’ accounts very seriously and will always do our utmost to protect and safeguard genuine victims of MSHT.

“But where criminals seek to abuse the system to avoid being accountable for serious crimes we will make sure they face the full force of the law.

“Kreka’s drugs would have ended up on our streets damaging lives, eroding communities and ultimately helping to fuel more serious organised crime and all the violence and exploitation that involves.”