Heroin worth £2.5 million smuggled into UK sewn into women's clothing
Two members of an organised Walsall crime group who smuggled £2.5million ($3.15m) worth of high purity heroin into the UK by sewing it into women’s clothing have each been jailed for 18 years.
Asghar Khan, 48, from Eastbourne Street and Rashad Mahmood, aged 52, from Reedswood Lane, smuggled the class A drug into the UK from Pakistan using a legitimate cargo company which sent the parcels by air freight. The industrial mincing machines they imported were also filled with the drugs.
The pair, both born in Pakistan, were jailed at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday for their part in the elaborate drug scheme which was uncovered by Border Force officers.
The court heard that Khan and Mahood imported large quantities of heroin between September 2014 to April 2015 in which at least four consignments were sent to the UK.
Border Force officers examined a consignment at Manchester Airport and found a series of welded metal blocks within the motors of mincing machines containing packages of heroin. Two of the drug consignments were intercepted at Birmingham Airport.
During one drugs operation, authorities discovered 20 kilos of heroin hidden in three separate consignments which forensic examinations revealed was 62 per cent pure.
The huge haul was double the usual street purity of the drug found in the UK and had a potential street value of more than £2.5 million.
Khan was first arrested in 2014 after attempting to collect the second consignment and was arrested again, along with Mahmood, in April 2016 on suspicion of conspiracy to import controlled drugs.
NCA Operations Manager Dawn Cartwright said the pair both played a leading role in the importation of at least four consignments.
“We have punched a major hole in this OCG in what Her Honour Judge Henderson described as “an exemplary investigation,” she said.
“Drugs fuel further crime, exploitation and violence. Working with our partners we will make sure drug dealers are stopped and punished.”
