Drugs-bust police dog Buster nabs his man in Bethnal Green tube station
Jasper Hippolyte - Credit: BT Police
A drugs runner did a runner after giving himself away smelling of cannabis as he passed police officers.
He tried ditching the drugs when they chased him—but 19-year-old Jasper Hippolyte was busted when Buster the police dog sniffed out his stash.
Now he’s spending the next two-and-a-half-years in a Young Offender’s Institute after being caught with a cocktail of drugs worth £200 on the streets.
He had cannabis, ketamine hydrochloride and ecstasy on him when he came up the escalator at Bethnal Green tube station.
Two officers in the station ticket hall could smell the cannabis and asked him to go to a side room to be searched.
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But the teenager broke free from their grip and made a run for it out the station and into Museum Gardens nearby.
The officers saw him stop near bushes before walking back towards them where he was arrested.
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He had ditched the hoard—but a police dog-handler was called in whose drugs-detection canine named Buster found a sock hanging in the bushes stuffed with small bags of cannabis, ketamine hydrochloride and ecstasy.
Hippolyte’s home in Hackney Wick was searched where more bags of the same drugs were found, with an additional street value of £1,000.
Officers also discovered £1,000 cash, weighing scales and a ledger recording money paid, as well as a document telling clients how to order drugs—they would ask for different branches of a famous chain of stores as a code for whichever drugs they were ordering, Snaresbrook Crown Court was told.
Det Con Dan Holmes, from British Transport Police, said after the sentencing: “Hippolyte was caught thanks to Buster the drugs dog and the excellent sense of smell of the officers at the tube station.
“His 30-month sentence is a warning to others that carrying or dealing drugs on the transport network is not acceptable.”
Hippolyte admitted possession with intent to supply cannabis, ketamine and ecstasy—and with obstructing a drugs search. An order was also made for the drugs to be forfeited and destroyed.
Buster, an eight-year-old crossbreed Collie-Labrador originally rescued by the RSPCA, has since retired after working six years with BT Police.
