Prison term after 172kg drugs bust
TWO British-Indian men have been sentenced to a total of 34 years in “one of the Met’s biggest drugs busts” worth over £20 million.
Shakti Gupta, 34, from Birmingham, and Baldev Singh Sahota, 54, from Oldbury in West Midlands, were jailed for 18 years and 16 years, respectively, following a haul of 172 kg of cocaine, one of the largest land seizures of Class A or illegal drugs in the country.
“This operation has resulted in one of the largest land seizures of cocaine within the UK, ever,” said Detective Superintendent Neil Ballard, from the Metropolitan Police specialist crime command.
“It is an extremely significant amount of Class A drugs that indicates the scale of this organised drug supply, which the Met has successfully dismantled,” he said.
On December 11 last year, a team of the Met’s Specialist Crime officers, supported by West Midlands Police, stopped a vehicle on the A45 highway, being driven by Sahota.
An inspection of the van turned up a large quantity (168kg) of Class A drugs (cocaine) had been mixed among pallets of frozen food.
A further search at an address in Olds Trading Estate Park in Hockley, Birmingham, on the same day found another 4kg of Class A drugs (cocaine and MDMA). Gupta was arrested following the second raid and both men were taken into custody within the West Midlands Police jurisdiction.
“This sentencing result is due to the hard work and commitment from those involved in dismantling drugs networks that are intrinsically linked to the violence that we have seen playing out on our streets and throughout the country,” said Ballard. “This result should serve as a stark warning to anyone involved in the supply of drugs in London and the rest of the UK that we will do everything we legitimately can to bring you to justice.”