LONDON: A woman has been sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison after National Crime Agency (NCA) officers found 85 kilograms of heroin worth an estimated £8.5 million in her home in Bradford.

Sidrah Nosheen, 34, was part of an organised crime group that smuggled heroin from Pakistan into the United Kingdom and supplied it across the country, the NCA said in a statement.

Officers arrested Nosheen at her property on Woodside Road, Wyke, in June 2024. During the operation, they discovered that her back bedroom had been converted into what investigators described as a heroin processing plant.

The NCA said heroin concealed inside items of clothing including leather jackets had been delivered to Nosheen’s address. She would remove the drugs and package them into one-kilo deal bags.

During the search, officers recovered 85kg of the Class A drug in various bags, along with a wallpaper pasting table, weighing scales, buckets and other tools. Boxes containing plastic-wrapped clothing waiting to be opened were also found, as well as debris from boxes that had already been processed.

Phone evidence showed hundreds of messages between Nosheen and an accomplice in Pakistan discussing the supply of heroin to the UK. Investigators also found evidence that she distributed multi-kilogram consignments of drugs to contacts within the UK and, on one occasion, collected £250,000 for the organised crime group from a criminal in Bradford.

Nosheen was due to stand trial at Bradford Crown Court but later changed her plea, admitting conspiracy to supply heroin and conspiracy to import heroin.

She was sentenced on Tuesday.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2025