Female gang member jailed in UK for smuggling drugs from Pakistan

London, Dec 23 (PTI) A British Pakistani gang member of an organised crime group was on Tuesday jailed for 21 years and six months, after the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) found 8.5 million pounds worth of drugs from Pakistan in her home.  Sidrah Nosheen, 34, was found to have played a crucial role as part of the gang that smuggled heroin from Pakistan to the UK and sold it across Britain.

The Class A, or illegal, drugs were concealed in clothes such as leather jackets to be delivered to her home in Bradford, northern England, where she removed them and put them in 1 kg deal bags.

When she was arrested at the property in June last year, the NCA said that officers discovered her back bedroom had been converted into a heroin processing plant.  “To outward appearances, Sidrah Nosheen lived an unremarkable life in Bradford; but the truth is that she was at the centre of a plot to move large amounts of heroin around the country, dealing in the addiction and death that are inseparable from the Class A drugs trade,” said Rick MacKenzie, NCA senior investigating officer.  “She didn’t give a second’s thought to the damage heroin wreaks on society; she was solely interested in making money. The NCA works at home and abroad to protect the public from the threat of Class A drugs,” he said.  NCA said its officers found 85 kg of the Class A drugs in various bags along with a wallpaper pasting table, scales, buckets and tools. They also recovered boxes of plastic-wrapped clothing waiting to be opened, and the remnants and debris of boxes already processed.  “Phone evidence revealed hundreds of messages with an accomplice in Pakistan about supplying heroin in the UK. And there was also evidence that she distributed multi-kilo drugs consignments to UK contacts and on one occasion collected 250,000 pounds for the OCG [organised crime group] from a criminal in Bradford," the NCA said.  Nosheen was due to stand trial at Bradford Crown Court, but changed her plea to guilty, admitting conspiracy to supply heroin and conspiracy to import heroin. She returned to the court in Bradford this week, where she was sentenced for the crime. PTI AK GRS GRS GRS