Checkmate for smuggler in drugs sting

A 31-year-old Oldham man has been jailed for smuggling £550,000 of 1.6 kilos of pure heroin into the country, inside chessboards from Pakistan.

Syed Naveed Shabir of Coppice Street was jailed for nine years after an undercover operation by the National Crime Agency.

The parcel was intercepted in September 2012 by the UK Border Force. It was addressed to a Mr S Ahmed at a house in Gainsborough Avenue, Coppice. The name was fictitious but the address real.

Officers passed on a dummy package, delivered by a NCA officer. He got no answer but left a card referring him to a monitored line - later called from Shabir’s number, though Manchester Crown Court heard the parcel was actually received by another man, Khazar Hussain, who signed himself Sataroz Ahmed.

Hussain accused Shabir of setting him up and was cleared of all charges.

In 2011, Shabir, with Milad Finn and Liaquat Khan, was cleared of the gangland killing of 21-year-old Junaid Khan.