Members of West Midlands drug gang who smuggled heroin worth £280k inside pressure cooker still at large
Members of a Birmingham drugs gang are still at large after using a pressure cooker to smuggle heroin worth up to £280,000.
Packed in a parcel, the 1.5kg of heroin was intercepted by customs officials on July 24 of 2023 and removed before the parcel was allowed to continue on to a business in Formans Road, Sparkhill. It was picked up by Abid Iqbal, who was then arrested along with his associates Fasheeh Ahmed and Muhammad Awais.
After police searched a flat linked to the gang in Stratford Road nearly half a kilo of heroin was seized along with cutting agents, £15,000 in cash and several phones. Iqbal claimed he never knew what was in the parcel and had simply been paid £60 to collect it. The combined street value of all of the heroin recovered as part of the investigation was £458,000.
Iqbal, aged 58, of no fixed address, admitted importation of heroin, possession with intent to supply heroin, and possession of criminal property in relation to the £15,000 in cash. Muhammed Awais, aged 27, of no fixed address, was convicted of the same offences, as was Faseeh Ahmed, aged 24, of Thornhill Road, Birmingham.
Iqbal and Awais were tried and convicted in their absence after failing to answer their court bail. Both were sentenced in their absence too, in June at Birmingham Crown Court, and given jail sentences of 11 years each. Efforts to arrest them continue.
Ahmed was jailed for eight years at Birmingham Crown Court on October 10.
Detective Constable Liam O’Brien, from the Regional Organised Crime Unit for the West Midlands, said: "This was a significant amount of heroin that would have been sold on the streets of the West Midlands, causing untold misery and fuelling the violent and exploitative drug trade."
