£10m drug smugglers lose sentence appeal

AN appeal court has refused to reduce the jail term of a Werneth man found guilty in a £10million heroin plot.

Fiaz Ahmed (33) of Cambridge Street was sentenced to 23 years for his part in a plot to smuggle heroin inside bottles of baby powder in the mail.

The group’s ringleader, Khalid Mahmood (32) from Bradford, was also refused a reduction in his 25-year sentence. But gang member Faisal Khan (31) from Bradford had his 21-year term cut to 19 years.

The plot involved drugs being sent to the UK in 95 separate consignments in 2010 and 2011.

Parcels would be sent from Bradford to Pakistan where the contents were replaced with bottles of baby powder with heroin hidden inside. The packages were resealed and marked “undelivered — return to sender”. and returned to addresses in Hull for distribution.

When mail staff in Hull became suspicious they alerted police. Five packages were intercepted and the plot discovered. It as estimated that drugs worth £9 million had been smuggled in at that point.

After the interception the gang moved to Manchester and imported another million pounds worth of drugs

All three were found guilty of conspiracy to import and supply class A drugs and of money laundering.

Their lawyers argued the punishments were far too tough. Khan’s lawyers said the judge didn’t take proper account of his low IQ and that he was acting on instruction and his sentence was reduced.