Drug gang of Indian-origin men using frozen chicken as cover discovered in UK

The gang communicated with each other via the Encrochat platform (representative)

London:

A gang of Indian-origin men who used consignments of frozen chicken to smuggle drugs has been busted by British police, with each member facing between 16 and two years in prison.

Maninder Dosanjh, 39, was jailed for 16 years and eight months and Amandeep Rishi, 42, faces 11 years and two months for their roles in the conspiracy to supply prohibited Class A drugs and money laundering, which was laid at Birmingham Crown Court last week.

West Midlands Police told the court they had seized 400kg of “high purity” cocaine, as well as £1.6m in illegal cash. Detectives dismantled the wholesale chain, with the 10-strong gang transporting the drugs on pallets of raw chicken.

“This far-reaching investigation involved the import, export and wholesale of cocaine and money laundering,” said Detective Chief Superintendent Pete Cooke, of West Midlands Police’s Regional Organised Crime Unit (ROCU).

“We were able to expose the gangs’ activities, which were both sophisticated and commercial in nature, as they used a network of highly trusted individuals and a fleet of vehicles with hidden compartments,” he said.

“We are confident that they were responsible for the importation of hundreds of kilos of cocaine, estimated at over a tonne, from which they made huge sums of money, estimated at over £10 million,” he added.

Some of the illicit cash recovered by West Midlands ROCU was found in car tyres and industrial machinery in vans disguised as mechanical service vehicles. Police also found 225kg of cocaine destined for export to Australia, stored in a warehouse in Sutton Coldfield, in the West Midlands region of England.

“But all of these businesses were illegal and put large quantities of drugs, which we know are destroying lives and devastating communities, onto the streets both here in the UK and abroad. Our teams were able to trace the activities, identify the criminals and ultimately put them behind bars with significant prison sentences,” added DCI Cooke.

The gang communicated via the Encrochat platform, an encrypted messaging app that criminals believed law enforcement could not access. The app has since been shut down by detectives as part of a major operation in the UK.

These messages discussed the logistics, management and supply of up to a tonne of cocaine and large amounts of criminal money collected or delivered in the UK.

Dosanjh and Rishi were the first to be arrested with more than 150kg of cocaine hidden in frozen chicken products when Birmingham police officers stopped the van they were travelling in as they returned from the Essex port. Others in the gang were arrested after one of the gangsters collected wheels and tyres in the West Midlands before driving to London, where they were passed to another gangster on a residential street. When the tyres were slashed, they were found to contain around £500,000 in cash. On another occasion, just over £1 million in cash was found in a hidden air compressor compartment in another van belonging to the gang that was stopped by officers.

The 10 men, who lived in Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Walsall, South Staffordshire and London, were all arrested within 10 days in July 2020. They subsequently pleaded guilty to drug trafficking between March and August 2020. They were sentenced on August 20 this year.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)