LONDON: Their plan was foiled when Border Force officers at Leeds Bradford Airport opened an unclaimed package on a luggage carousel
A gang who smuggled £1.9m worth of heroin in a chapati oven has been sentenced to a total of 26 years in prison. The three criminals attempted to import the drug from Islamabad into Leeds Bradford Airport. But their plan was foiled when Border Force officers at Leeds Bradford Airport opened an unclaimed package on a luggage carousel.
Inside they discovered the oven, which contained almost 13 kilos of heroin, reports the Manchester Evening News .
If cut and sold in the UK the drugs would have had a potential likely street value of around £1.9 million.
Kulwinder El-AssadJailed: Kulwinder El-Assad claimed she did not know co-defendant Khan, saying she was a paid escort
A day later Mohammed Aslam Khan, 61, and Kulwinder El Assad, 40, were arrested at the airport when they arrived to pick up the parcel.
In interviews Khan, who had arrived on the same Islamabad flight as the parcel, said he travelled to Pakistan to visit a dying relative.
El Assad told officers she did not know Khan and claimed she was a paid escort.
Khan’s ticket for the trip had been bought and paid for by the third defendant, Arbab Akhtar, 29.
Akhtar claimed never to have met Khan, but phone and CCTV analysis showed he had driven to Ashton-Under-Lyne to collect Khan, taken him to Blackburn to get his ticket and then dropped him off at the airport for his outbound flight.
Mohammed KhanJailed: Mohammed Khan was arrested when he turned up to pick up the chapati oven
Akhtar’s phone was in the Bradford area on the day Khan returned, and had been in contact with Khan’s phone and a number in Pakistan which was also found on El Assad’s mobile.
Akhtar was arrested at Manchester Airport as he returned from Pakistan to the UK in July.
Mohammed Aslam Khan, from Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester, and Arbab Akhtar, from Blackburn, both admitted conspiring to import Class A drugs.
Kulwinder El Assad, from Tipton in the West Midlands, was found guilty after a four day trial at Leeds Crown Court.
