Smugglers jailed after police sting

Andrew Clark

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AN Oldham man who played a key role in a drug-smuggling operation, which would have put heroin worth more than half a million pounds on the streets, has been jailed for eight years.

Abnan Irshad (29) was recruited to arrange collection and onward delivery of packages of drugs mailed by parcel-post from Pakistan.

He and an accomplice were caught out by a police sting, after an innocent-looking parcel, which apparently contained wraps of cloth, sent from Lahore to an address in Middleton, was intercepted by officers from the UK Border Agency.

The bulky package was opened after arriving at an international Parcel Force depot in Coventry, en route to the address on Fern Close, Middleton.

Beneath the cloth, officers discovered 22 plastic containers similar to those used for vitamin pills, but instead, hidden beneath either a layer of grease, or innocuous white pills, was more than 7.2 kilos of heroin.

The package, measuring around 4ftx2ft, was re-wrapped minus the drugs, and the parcel which also had a recording device now hidden inside, was sent on its way.

An officer from the Serious Organised Crimes Unit posed as a delivery driver as colleagues kept watch on the Fern Close address, to see who eventually signed for it.

Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court was told that after two failed attempts to get someone to answer the door on May 7, Irshad’s accomplice, 27-year old Andrew Clark, whose cousin lived at the flat, accepted the package and signed for it.

Irshad, of Norfolk Street, Werneth, had already made one visit to the address in his black BMW car, then driven off again when nobody answered his knock at the door.

After accepting the delivered package, officers watched Clark take a taxi to his own home address on Gilmore Street, Middleton, where Irshad later arrived to collect it, this time driving a grey Subaru vehicle. He parked around the corner, went inside, and emerged with the package two minutes later, at which point police moved in.

Christopher Stables prosecuting, said scraps of conversation were picked up by the recording device in which Irshad was heard to mention having collected a gun from Salford, and having “one of my boys” in prison.

No firearm was recovered however, and the court was told he later claimed to have made the remarks out of simple bravado.

The court was told that the heroin seized had an estimated value if cut, and sold on the streets, of £656,000. The court was told that there had been six packages delivered in total, but at least two were innocent trial runs to test whether the mail system worked.

Mr Stables said Irshad had been the main player of the two, having agreed to arrange for delivery of the drugs in the UK, then collection and onward distribution to others in the chain.

Irshad said he had been paid £500 for each package he was involved with, and Clark said he received a single payment of £300 for one package he had delivered to his address.

Both pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to contravene customs and excise regulations by illegally importing heroin into the country.

Sentencing Irshad to eight years, and Clark to six, judge Yvonne Coppel told them: “This was a well-organised and well-planned enterprise, and it is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be passed.”