A 30-year-old drug dealing asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast has been sentenced to 17 months in prison after he was convicted of violently assaulting an undercover police officer in Hannover.

Moussa S., 30, attempted to sell a ball of cocaine to a man he thought was another drug dealer to then sell it on the streets of Hannover. After the undercover policeman did not pay the asylum seeker, he and a friend set upon the officer and chocked him until he was almost unconscious, Bild reports.

The officer described the incident in court saying: “I had lost contact with my colleague, but did not want to return the cocaine as I wanted it as evidence. I held my badge right in front of his face, yelling, ‘Stop it, Police!’ But he kept choking. I saw white spots in front of my eyes.”

Eventually, the 28-year-old plainclothes officer managed to break free and then overpower the asylum seeker and arrest him.

The court sentenced Moussa S. to 17 months in prison and he is also required to pay the officer 500 euros in compensation.

The case is the latest in a wave of drug crime involving asylum seekers in Germany. According to a report from the police in Schleswig-Holstein earlier this year, asylum seekers have become more active in drug dealing in recent months.

Police in the region say they feared that newly arrived asylum seekers were taking over the drug trade and had no objections to using violence to advance their business.

Migrants Increase Drug Crime By Ten Per Cent https://t.co/uHCk30D50a pic.twitter.com/DExlIxUziv — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 27, 2016

Migrants have also been caught dealing drugs from asylum homes. One migrant, who was said to be dealing large quantities of drugs from his asylum home, was sentenced to only a year in prison last month.

Gangs of young migrants have also been heavily involved in the street drug trade in the German capital of Berlin. Many have pushed out older dealers in areas like Kottbus Tur and some complain that they are making the Alexanderplatz metro area into a dangerous no-go area.