Crime Group Used M6 Services For £10m Drugs Drop Off

Thursday, 28 July 2016 07:00

Nine members including a Bradford man of an organised crime group responsible for importing heroin with a potential street value of £10 million into the UK have been jailed for a total of 118 years, following a multi-agency operation led by the National Crime Agency.

Dutch national Erwin Hendriks, 45, was arrested on 26 June 2015 after officers from the NCA and the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit (TITAN) observed the coordinated delivery and collection of large quantities of heroin from a lorry at a motorway service station on the M6.

Hendriks, who was running the criminal operation on the ground, received texts from a Dutch mobile phone confirming what type of vehicle each customer would arrive in and the number of colour-coded packages of heroin they were due to collect.

Once the customers had arrived, Hendriks instructed his trusted lieutenants, Tomasz Dylewski, 34, and Jerzy Banucha, 47, both Polish nationals, to escort them round to the lorry park to pick up the drugs.

Over the course of two hours, a number of vehicles arrived and packages were transferred from the lorry in suitcases and sports bags. Two of the vehicles were stopped later that evening by officers from the North West Motorway Police Group.

Burak Gurgur, 26, and Ugur Bakac, 29, both of Stamford Road, London, were arrested after officers recovered 20 kilos of heroin from the boot of their car hidden in large plastic bags.

Yasar Ozekmecki, 26, of Cleveland Road, London, was also arrested when officers found two large white sacks and a large sports bag containing more than 35.5 kilos of heroin in the black Hackney cab he was travelling in.

Dylewski and Banucha were arrested by NCA officers whilst still in the car park of the Lymm services. Officers recovered 20 kilos of heroin hidden in a sports bag in the boot of their car.

A third vehicle, driven by Rebecca Chin, 30, of Cookfield Close, Dunstable, was seen pulling up next to the lorry in the car park at the services and was later linked to a Metropolitan Police Service investigation. She was arrested in July 2015 and in a search of her home officers recovered 24 kilos of heroin packaged in sports bags and white sacks. This brought the total haul of class A drugs seized from the lorry to almost 100 kilos.

Chin and her partner Ali Parvez, 31, were charged with conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs and are currently awaiting sentencing.

Yesterday at the Manchester Crown Square Court, Hendriks was sentenced to 16 years in prison, whilst Dylewski and Banucha both received a sentence of 13 years and four months.

Their customers, Gurgur and Bakac were sentenced at the same court to 16 years and Ozekmecki received a sentence of 10 years and eight months.

Through analysis of the text messages received by Hendriks, NCA investigators identified a further three customers who had attended the service station that day to collect packages from the lorry. Mohammed Kabir, 29 and Richard Bowers, 51, were each sentenced today to 10 years and eight months in prison, and Shah Faisal, 27 of Hillam Street, Great Horton Bradford, was sentenced to 12 years.

Joanne Ralfs, Senior Investigating Officer from the National Crime Agency, said: 
“This was a meticulously planned operation by organised criminals to distribute millions of pounds worth of heroin throughout the UK.

“The nine men sentenced today were well aware that they were engaged in serious criminality, yet such was their confidence they conducted their handovers in broad daylight, in a public motorway service station, apparently with no concern for who saw them.

“I have no doubt that through our multi-agency approach we have disrupted drug trafficking networks both here in the UK and abroad. The NCA is patient and thorough and we will use all the tools available to target and disrupt organised criminals.”

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