A man has been caged for his role in a Torry drug-dealing gang.
Eythan Eite operated a mobile phone used to advertise class-A drugs for sale to hundreds of potential customers in Aberdeen.
The 24-year-old would be contacted by users looking to source drugs and then facilitated and arranged deals.
Eite, who used the nickname “Easy” and is currently servicing a prison sentence after he was caught with £170,000 of heroin, was snared after police watched him and others in the group over a period of months.
Fiscal depute Jane Spark told Aberdeen Sheriff Court that intelligence was received by police over the course of 2022 about a group operating in Torry under the name “Fats” or “Easy”.
In response to this, officers carried out surveillance of Eite.
Between October 2022 and January 2023, intelligence indicated “Easy” was using a specific phone number to facilitate drug dealing.
‘Extremely nervous’ dealer caught with cash and cocaine
Throughout late October, November and December 2022, police observed two particular males meet with various members of the public to exchange items for cash.
Transactions were spotted on Victoria Road, Balnagask Road, Wood Street, Farquhar Road and Farquhar Avenue.
Following one transaction, on October 30 2022, officers stopped the drug user and found him in possession of £20 of crack cocaine.
The man advised that he had contacted the telephone number and arranged to meet someone to purchase the drug.
He stated he had been contacting the same number since June of 2022 to source drugs.
On November 8 2022, officers saw another user meet with one of the males on Farquhar Avenue before going out of view briefly, returning and parting ways.
The user was stopped and found with a wrap of crack cocaine which he said he’d purchased from the male he met.
A similar crack transaction was also seen on Baxter Street on November 22, with the user telling officers he’d been buying cocaine and previously heroin from a man he knew as “Easy or Eythan”.
The man told the police he would regularly receive texts from Easy via the phone number reading “on with best of both” which would let him know Easy would be dealing drugs that day.
Surveillance continued over the following two months until, on January 17 2023, search warrants were executed at various address in Torry and Cove.
Entry was forced to an address on Old Church Road where the two males who had been carrying out the hand-to-hand transactions, together with another male, were found.
One of those males had texts on his phone to and from the known number “indicative of facilitating supply for the operator” of that number.
Police also forced entry to another address in Torry.
While officers were still there, Eite arrived and was swiftly arrested, searched and found in possession of £465 and keys to an address on Farquhar Road where a further £11,000 was found on open display.
Eite also had a Nokia phone found to contain the SIM card of the known number.
Checks then linked Eite to the number and indicated it had been in his possession until January 26 2022 and then again from January 4 2023.
On analysis of the phone, it was established it was used to send multiple texts to up to 371 unique numbers.
In a separate charge, just after midnight on June 28 2023, police on patrol on North Esplanade West spotted another vehicle.
Due to the manner of its driving, they pulled the vehicle over and found Eite to be a passenger.
Eite and the other occupants showed “nervous, erratic behaviour” when answering questions and were detained after checks.
On searching the vehicle, the police found £600 in untidy, scrunched up notes under the seat Eite had been sitting in.
‘Damage the trade of class A drugs causes communities is well-known’
On July 10 2023, officers were carrying out inquiries within a block of flats on Girdleness Terrace when they saw Eite enter and, on seeing the police, place his hands in his pockets and look “extremely nervous”.
He was cautioned and detained for a search and found to be carrying 22g of cocaine, worth around £2,200, and £970 in cash.
Eite, of HMP Barlinnie, pled guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine and heroin between June 30 2022 and January 17 2023.
He also admitted being concerned in the supply of cocaine again between June 28 and July 10 2023.
Defence agent Iain McGregor said his client was just 22 at the time of the offences.
He said the offences were a “continuation” of a matter previously prosecuted in the High Court in Edinburgh, for which he received a prison sentence of four years and nine months.
Mr McGregor said: “There’s no escaping the fact Mr Eite did continue his activities and he appeared on this matter in July 2023 and was remanded in custody.
“He wasn’t the top of the tree. He was somewhere further down but not the end distributer.”
Sheriff Andrew Miller told Eite: “These are extremely serious offences.
“The damage which the trade of class A drugs causes to individuals, families and communities is well-known and that’s why offences of this nature generally result in the imposition of significant custodial sentences.”
He jailed Eite for three years, consecutive to his current High Court sentence.
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