Three men have been jailed for their roles in an organised crime group that smuggled several billion pounds worth of heroin, cocaine and cannabis into the UK.
The OCG included offenders from across the UK and criminals from the Netherlands who were brought to justice following a long-running National Crime Agency investigation.
From south-east England to Scotland, the OCG supplied other crime groups with drugs from its importations – which are believed to have contained more than 50 tonnes of drugs – the weight of around 30 family-sized cars.
The group was led by Paul Green, 59, of Widnes, Cheshire, who was known as ‘the big fella’. He was jailed for 32 years earlier this year, and Sohail Qureshi, 64, one of his key accomplices, was sentenced to 25 years behind bars at Manchester Crown Court.
Qureshi, of Wood Crescent, White City, London, but originally from Glasgow, was convicted of plotting to import heroin, cocaine and cannabis. He was crucial to the OCG because he helped them join forces with a team of offenders from the Netherlands, which generated new smuggling routes to the UK.
Qureshi worked closely with Khaleed Vazeer, 58, of Timperley, and Ghazanfar Mahmood, 53, of Bolton, both in Greater Manchester.
Mahmood, who was born in Pakistan but holds Danish nationality, was convicted of being involved in an OCG. The former taxi driver took his orders from Qureshi and travelled to Spain and the Netherlands to develop the operation, and he became a director of a front company in the Netherlands.
He was sentenced to three years and nine months. Vazeer was convicted of the same charges as Qureshi.
He helped set up a front company in the UK and helped Dutch crime boss Barbara Rijnbout, jailed for 18 years earlier this year, to open personal and business bank accounts in the UK using forged documents.
Dutch wiretap evidence showed Vazeer supported and encouraged Rijnbout, 53, of Utrecht, to run the Dutch OCG side.
Vazeer was sentenced to 20 years.
The offences were committed between August 2015 and September 2018, during which the OCG smuggled at least 240 consignments of drugs.
The group set up front companies and rented warehouses in the Netherlands and UK to move drugs hidden in deliveries of strong-smelling foodstuffs such as onions, garlic and ginger.
In addition to the warehouses in Sheffield and Preston, the OCG also rented premises in Leeds, Warrington, Bolton, Wigan, and Ormskirk.
In total, more than 246 years of jail time have been given to 12 members of the OCG. Two men who cannot be named for legal reasons await sentencing for their roles along with Ashley Jones, 34, of St Helens, Merseyside. He admitted to conspiring to import Class A drugs and will be sentenced at a date to be confirmed.
Two offenders were given suspended sentences, and one died before he could be sentenced.
The OCG members were convicted over two trials: one lasting 23 months – a record in England and Wales – and the second lasting nine months.
Richard Harrison, regional head of investigations at the National Crime Agency, said, “These criminals supplied unprecedented amounts of drugs right across the UK.
“And along with that, an incalculable amount of damage to society with the violence, addiction, exploitation and misery that are inseparable from supplying drugs. Offenders like these only care about the money to be made.
“They don’t care that they fuel horrendous problems such as children being sucked into dealing drugs through County Lines or innocent members of the public being hurt or even killed in the crossfire of turf wars.
“I commend my officers for the years of dedicated and tenacious work that went into bringing this OCG to justice.”
