Tipton drug smuggler jailed after heroin worth £1.9m found in chapatti oven
A drug smuggler from Tipton caught trying to import £1.9 million of heroin inside a chapatti oven has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Kulwinder El Assad, 40, attempted to to import the heroin from Islamabad with the help of Arbab Akhtar, 29, from Blackburn and Mohammed Aslam Khan, 61, from Ashton-Under-Lyne.
El Assad had played a key role in the operation, having been in touch with the people the gang had sourced the drugs from in Pakistan.
She was found guilty of conspiring to import Class A drugs after a four day trial at Leeds Crown Court, while Akhtar and Khan were jailed for eight and six year terms after admitting to their roles in the conspiracy.
The trio's plot was rumbled after officers found almost 13 kilos of heroin hidden inside a chapatti oven in a package at Leeds Bradford airport on March 26 2014.
El Assad was arrested at the airport alongside Khan when the pair arrived to collect the parcel a day later. Akhtar was arrested at Manchester Airport when he returned from Pakistan in July.
Khan, who had arrived on the same Islamabad flight as the parcel, told National Crime Agency officers he had travelled to Pakistan to visit a dying relative.
El Assad and Akhtar both claimed not to know Khan, however, investigators used CCTV and phone evidence to prove the links between the conspirators and place them at key locations in the plot.
Akhtar had paid for Khan's ticket to Pakistan and had driven him to the airport for his outbound flight.
On the day Khan returned, Akhtar's phone was in the Bradford area and had been in contact with Khan's phone as well as a number in Pakistan which was also found on El Assad's mobile.
NCA senior investigating officer Mick Maloney said: "These three individuals were involved in an international conspiracy to source class A drugs worth almost £2 million and bring them back to the UK.
"I've no doubt that had they not been stopped the heroin would have ended up being sold on UK streets.
"A lot of work had gone into this concealment which tells me they were part of a professional drug trafficking crime network.
"All three played key roles. El Assad was in touch with those they sourced the drugs from in Pakistan. Akhtar was the logistics man who made all the travel arrangements and was in regular contact with the others, while Khan was the courier."
Mark Robinson, assistant director for Border Force Yorkshire & Humber, said the case would send 'a strong message to the criminal gangs involved in drug smuggling.'
