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LONDON: Two members of the Bradford community have been locked up for conspiring to import heroin from Pakistan.
Bilal Suleman, 21, was jailed for four years and eight months and Zaber Khan, 36, received a prison sentence of two years and eight months, at Leeds Crown Court yesterday.
Prosecutor Michael Smith said that Suleman, of Ellis Street, Marshfields, Bradford, leased a warehouse in Batley for the legitimate importation of foodstuffs.
On January 3 this year, Customs officers examined a consignment of goods from Islamabad to Heathrow. One of the boxes contained packages of French mayonnaise, two of which had been emptied and replaced by brown powder.
The following day, Suleman took delivery of the load and was arrested. Smith said police continued inquiries to trace a person who had phoned the freight forwarding company about the consignment.
That led to a Tesco supermarket in Bradford, where a man had purchased a mobile phone on that day. Smith said a text message had been sent to Suleman about the delivery.
CCTV footage showed the purchaser of the phone was Khan. The phone was only used at the time of the delivery and was not recovered. The prosecutor said the heroin recovered would have amounted to 760 grams at 100 per cent purity, with a street value, when cut, of 200,000.
Suleman, and Khan, of Bolton Road, Bolton, Bradford, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import class
A drugs. Sulemans barrister, Austin Welsh, said his clients involvement in the conspiracy was significant, but limited. He was only 21 and slightly naive. He was hard working and a well-respected member of the community.
Paul Lawton, representing Khan, said he had been of impeccable and positive good character, who had played a peripheral and transient role in an extremely serious offence.
The judge, Recorder Toby Hedworth QC, said the guidelines for the amount of drugs involved indicated severe sentences which were deliberate deterrents because of the dreadful ills caused to society by class A drugs.
