JAILED: Man who tried to smuggle heroin into West Midlands hidden inside rice cookers

Qaiser Khan, aged 32, of Bevington Road in Aston, was arrested by National Crime Agency officers in June 2014 after the cookers were imported from Pakistan into Birmingham International Airport.

Border Force staff carrying out checks on freight found around 3kg of the class A drug, with a potential street value of almost £500,000, concealed in the base of the cookers and alerted the NCA.

Investigators moved in after Khan took delivery of the packages.

A search of another address in Blackford Road, Sparkhill, uncovered another cooker and around 1.3kg of heroin.

Khan was charged with importing class A drugs and was due to stand trial at Birmingham Crown Court but on the first day changed his plea to guilty. On Friday 15 January 2016 he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Dawn Cartwright, head of the NCA's Birmingham border investigation team, said: "This operation has prevented a substantial quantity of heroin reaching the streets of the West Midlands and fueling further criminality.

"Working with our law enforcement partners like Border Force we are determined to do all we can to disrupt the organised criminal networks involved in the trafficking of class A drugs."

NCA investigators are continuing to search for a second man suspected of involvement in the smuggling attempt. 29-year-old Raja Arshad Khan, of Blackford Road, Sparkhill, was arrested at the same time as Qaiser, however he absconded and failed to answer bail before he could be charged.