Drug dealing TOWIE star jailed after £144k cocaine bust

Mike Hassini, a former star on the hit TV show ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ (TOWIE), has been jailed for six years and nine months after being caught with cocaine worth £144,000 earlier this year. The drug dealing TOWIE star was caught in the middle of an exchange with Gary Bear, 23, in Hornchurch, East London, in April 2021.

Hassini, who works as a personal trainer and appeared on the show between 2015 and 2018, was seen carrying a brown cardboard box into Bear’s Mercedes car at 9.43 am. When the police intervened and then searched the vehicle, they found the box contained a series of smartphones and disposable ‘burner phones’, as well as a duct tape wrapped block of the Class-A drug with high purity.

Police arrested Hassini in his car, where he told them he had ‘around £36,000 pounds in cash, although he had not counted it yet,’ according to reports. Hassini told police he only lived at his parent’s home, but they found he had keys and access to his girlfriend’s parents house too. There they found three smaller blocks of cocaine, along with boric acid, metal plates, a hydraulic press, and small amounts of loose cocaine and MDMA reports The Metro.

The drug dealing TOWIE star admitted conspiracy to supply a class A drug, possession of cocaine with intent to supply, and possession of criminal property. Judge Kwame Inyundo told him, per MailOnline: “Mr Hassini, it is clear you had an important role supplying high-value drugs destined for street supply.

“You must have had some awareness of the scale of the operation. You are not the only two young men [Hassini and Bear] to find themselves in difficulty as a result of the pandemic, but people who are in far worse situations than you do not make the decision to go into criminality. It must be observed that both of you knew what you were doing, and you did so with eyes wide open.”

Hassini received a sentence of six years and nine months imprisonment, while Bear was jailed for five years and three months after admitting conspiracy to supply a class A drug and possession of criminal property.

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