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19
Apr 2023
A drug dealer has been jailed for supplying cocaine in Harrogate for the second time in the space of a year.
Robert Luke Varela, 27, was caught “bang at it” after police spotted him lurking suspiciously on Franklin Road, Harrogate.
Prosecutor Camille Morland told York Crown Court that Varela - who once bragged he would “need a counting machine” due to the vast profits he was making from his illicit trade - took his hands out of his pockets as police drove past and threw a bag of crack cocaine to the ground.
She said that when officers went to speak to him, they found the bag, containing 11 wraps of high-purity crack cocaine, dumped on the pavement.
They seized an iPhone from Varela on which WhatsApp messages showed he had been dealing crack cocaine in the three months preceding his arrest in February 2021.
Varela, formerly of Harrogate, was charged with possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply and ultimately admitted the offence. He appeared for sentence via video link today.
Ms Morland said that in February 2022, Varela was jailed for two years and three months for possessing heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply in 2019.
He said that if Varela had been facing this new offence alone, he would have been looking at a jail sentence measured in years, but that he should have been sentenced for all matters over a year ago, which meant he would receive a reduced sentence.
The judge said that the new offence was part and parcel of Varela’s overall offending and “showed you were a determined drug dealer bang at it”.
Varela, who was due to be released from his existing prison sentence in December this year, was handed a new 12-month jail sentence which will run consecutively and extend his period behind bars by a further six months.
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