Drug smuggling plot: Three more jailed in UK’s biggest investigation

The court heard Qureshi was a “high level, executive” member of the gang, reporting directly to ringleader Paul Green.

Green, based in Widnes, Cheshire, was jailed for 32 years earlier this month.

Qureshi played a leading role in setting up new supply lines for the gang when they began to suspect a previous plan – involving the setting up of a front company – had been compromised.

Before passing sentence on the latest three gang members, Judge Paul Lawton said “career criminals” Qureshi and Vazeer had been secretly recorded at a London restaurant discussing criminal opportunities and drug smuggling.

The judge said they had helped import drugs on an “industrial and hitherto unprecedented scale”, causing “incalculable” harm across the UK.

“What was actually being imported was misery, social degradation and, in the case of some addicts, death,” he added.

Richard Harrison, the NCA’s regional head of investigations, said the gang had “absolutely no ethics”.

He added: “They stooped incredibly low and left a trail of devastation for entirely innocent people by cloning businesses and stealing identities.”

Crime and Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson said law-enforcement agencies were “determined to bring these organised drug gangs to justice”.

She added that “our streets will be safer with these criminals no longer free to prey on vulnerable people in the name of profit”.

The last of the three convicted gang members will be sentenced at a later date.