Family's drug racket exposed

Daljinder Bassi and his shop manager sister Rajvinder, who was also jailed at the city's crown court, were arrested in an operation which detectives said today had caused "significant" disruption to the supply of heroin and cocaine in the city and around the country.

Police swooped on the home of amateur footballer Daljinder Bassi, aged 27, a former Customs worker who has played for Halecroft Youth FC in the Black Country-based Beacon League.

They found heroin worth more than £197,000 and everything needed to process it, including chemicals, as well as £49,440 in bundles of notes around the house on Stafford Road in Oxley.

Officers then moved to the home of 34-year-old Rajvinder Bassi, who then managed a Stars News shop, now a Co-op, at the Vine Island on Stafford Road, Fordhouses.

In the flat above the shop where she lived, detectives uncovered £136,800 in cash, traces of heroin and the keys to a Honda Civic and arrested Rajvinder, who is also a former owner of the Shere Punjab restaurant on Newhampton Road East, Whitmore Reans.

Police found the Honda the following day at the BP service station on Stafford Road, where the siblings' nephew Karandeep Sandhu had moved it after the police raid, knowing his uncle was a dealer.

In the boot was a safe, the key to which was found in Daljinder's bedroom. The safe contained £167,110 in cash and 92 rounds of ammunition. Inside the car was cocaine and in all, £200,000 of heroin and £383,000 in cash was seized.

Daljinder Bassi pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs and possession of ammunition. Rajvinder was given 21 months today after admitting possession of the cash she "suspected had come from crime".

Sandhu, aged 21, of Powell Street, Park Village, who is due to start a course at Wolverhampton University in September, admitted assisting an offender and was given six months.