Dealer jailed after heroin, crack and cash found at Essington industrial estate
A former fork lift truck driver has been jailed for more than five years after a £10,000 stash of drugs was found hidden on a Staffordshire industrial unit.
Police swooped on Platinum Tyres in Essington after spotting Syed Imam selling drugs to a van driver.
Officers got a warrant to search the business he ran from the Hilton Main Industrial Unit at Bognop Road, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
He was just about to drive away from the premises when officers arrived two weeks later and prevented him leaving.
They found £1,500 cash, two mobile phones and the keys to the industrial unit along with wraps of heroin and cocaine, explained Mr Charles Crinion, prosecuting.
A search of the unit revealed more heroin and crack with a combined street value of around £10,000, the court was told. “The business was being used as cover and a store house,” observed Mr Crinion.
Imam was released pending further investigations into the case and was still on bail for that offence when police stopped a VW Polo that was being driven despite extensive damage on January 23 this year.
He and Syed Hasnain were passengers in the car that had no rear window and 26-year-old Imam was seen trying to drop a phone into the central console as officers began to question the occupants.
Imam tried to get rid of heroin worth £1,160 by leaving it in the vehicle used to take the pair for questioning but it was quickly found, continued Mr Crinion.
Cocaine valued at £630 was discovered during a strip search of 28-year-old Hasnain who had been jailed for 32 months in 2013 for an earlier drug dealing offence, the court heard.
Mr Michael Anning, defending, said Imam got hooked on hard drugs after losing his job in 2015. and continued: “He became so dependent that even the shock of the earlier arrest did not stop him taking and dealing drugs but he is now clean.”
Mr David Munro, representing Hasnain, who has also stopped taking drugs, said: “There is no excuse for what he did and he makes none. He is now planning to starting work as a hairdresser on his release.”
Imam, of Crosby Close, Whitmore Reans, admitted three offences of possessing cocaine and heroin with intent to supply and was sent to prison for five-and-a-half years.
Hasnain, of Tettenhall Road, Wolverhampton, pleaded guilty to a single offence and was jailed for two years, 10 months by Judge John Wait.
