Three men have been jailed for their part in a drugs empire that saw cocaine transported into Buckinghamshire.
A six-month surveillance operation from specialist police officers found the organised crime group (OCG) - run by two brothers in Hertfordshire - would meet with gangs from areas such as Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire, and Bedfordshire selling cocaine in multiple kilogrammes.
The operation, from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit, found the group used encrypted devices to arrange meets in a bid to avoid detection.
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After visiting areas such as Buckinghamshire, they would immediately return back to their base to cover their steps.
Three men, Jameel Khan, Ali Zarei, and Sarfraz Asif, have now been jailed for their part in the crime after police found they were acting as drug couriers.
Khan, 27, of Winchester Street, Nottingham, was jailed for 10 years, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine at St Albans Crown Court.
While Zarei, 27, of Derngate, Northampton, was jailed for five years and four months and Asif, 40, of Dordans Road, Luton, was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
The trio are the latest members of the OCG to be sentenced after brothers Ansar and Ajmal Akram, from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, were jailed for 15 years and 14 years respectively, and Ryan Brockley, from Leicester, was jailed for five years, on 9 August.
Khan’s role was as a trusted drug and cash courier, with detectives proving he had transported goods on 16 separate occasions, often returning with bags of cash in excess of £70,000 to hand directly to the OCGs leadership.
He was trusted with an encrypted phone to liaise with the Akram brothers directly and is thought to have made significant sums for his part in the network.
Zarei was a customer of the OCG and was a regional wholesaler around Northamptonshire, whereas Asif also acted as a courier.
Detective Inspector Ian Mawdesley, from ERSOU's Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: “These men played significant roles in distributing cash and cocaine across the country. Put simply, the criminal enterprise wouldn’t have worked without them.
“Between them they have moved multiple kilogrammes of drugs and hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash, and in doing so spread misery far and wide. They were key cogs in the OCG and their sentences reflect this.
“Our detectives have worked incredibly hard to bring this criminal organisation down, and intelligence gathered throughout this investigation is already helping policing colleagues across the country tackle further criminal offending.
"In addition to these sentences, our financial investigators will also use Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) legislation wherever possible to ensure those making money through illegal activity such as drug dealing are forced to repay their illicit gains.”
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