UK - Drugs baron used fake courier service

[honourableone]

A drugs baron ran a multi-million pound smuggling operation using a fake courier service, police have revealed.

Kuldip Singh Hayre – who has been jailed at least once before for drug crimes – masterminded the plot from his home in Loughborough.
He was the ringleader of a gang behind a "highly-sophisticated" trafficking operation which moved drugs worth millions of pounds across the UK.
Police said that the gang used a bogus courier van to move cannabis, amphetamines and ecstasy to and from the south coast, the Midlands and northern England.

In the nine months the gang was under surveillance by the force's elite special operations unit, it raked in up to £1.9 million.



Officers believe the men potentially earned far more.

Police were on the group's tail after 41-year-old Hayre, formerly of Bolsover Street, North Evington, Leicester, was released from jail after serving a sentence for previous drug-trafficking crimes.

He was also known to the force because he had served time for his role in the corruption of a Leicestershire detective, jailed for passing inside information to Hayre and other dealers on the Leicester drugs scene.

Detective Inspector Joe Elliott, of the unit, said Hayre had used 22 mobile phones in the course of the nine-month operation, codenamed Operation Beanbag. Though money was rolling in, the men – most of whom did not have legitimate jobs – were determined to stay off police radar by not splashing out on flashy cars and clothes, he said.
He said: "These men ran a highly- organised, professional operation and thought they were a step ahead of the law. There's no denying this was top-tier drugs supply.
"These men were supplying middle-level dealers who then fed down to street dealers. By unraveling their operation we have been able to prevent a large quantity of drugs hitting the streets of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and much further afield.
"We know they supplied to dealers in Loughborough and Leicester city centre, but we also tracked them to London, Birmingham, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire and West Yorkshire, as well as port cities such as Portsmouth, Southampton and Bristol."

The police operation led to a series of hearings in Leicester and Derby Crown Courts last year.
Hayre, whose Loughborough address cannot be published because of court reporting restrictions, ran the Leicestershire side of the business with a counterpart in Derbyshire, Paldip Mahngar.

Dalvinderdev Johal's role was to collect and deliver drugs, often disguised as a legitimate courier with consignments disguised as parcels.
Euzebia Flores and Sai Chauhan dealt with the collection of payment for the drugs and fed the money back to the gang's banker, Jasvir Bhathal. Police carried out raids and arrested the seven in June 2007.
They confiscated £20,000 cash and a stash of amphetamines and cannabis.

The seventh member of the gang, Loughborough man Jumaid Mulla, was also arrested. His address is also the subject of reporting restrictions.
The men are awaiting sentencing on a date to be fixed.

By the Leicester Mercury, 13th February 2009
Original source: http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.u...l/article.html