Kebab shop owner running crystal meth ring flees UK

AN INTERNATIONAL manhunt has been launched for a convicted drug trafficker who fled Britain after police failed to confiscate all of his passports.

Majid Rasoolzadeh, 46, was bailed after he surrendered his British passport and two others, relating to his native Iran, following his arrest for trafficking crystal meth.

But unknown to police, father-oftwo Rasoolzadeh had a secret fourth travel document that he concealed from authorities.

Just three days after giving evidence at his trial at Manchester Crown Court, Rasoolzadeh dropped off his secondin-command at a ferry terminal in Dover before leaving his car at London Stansted airport and flying to Turkey. He later sent his lawyer a text saying: “Thanks [for] your service but I will no longer be attending.”

Warrants were issued for the arrest of Rasoolzadeh and Jan Pasulka, 36.

The court heard Rasoolzadeh had been the head of a gang that used the UK as a “staging post” to traffic millions of pounds’ worth of crystal meth from Iran to Yakuza gangs in Japan.

Between October 2013 and July 2014, smugglers would traffic crystal meth from Iran to Turkey before it was laminated and flown to the UK, hidden in the lining of suitcases.

Rasoolzadeh, who arrived in the UK in 2005, was sentenced to imprisonment for 16 years in his absence. Pasulka received 12 years.

Known as “Raz”, the drug kingpin ran a Turkish kebab house in the Timperley area of Greater Manchester.