Businessman jailed over plot to import heroin from Pakistan

Model Kimpreet Kaur Lali, 22, was yesterday given 12 months in prison suspended for two years with supervision and 200 hours’ unpaid work after Waheed Anwar Hussain was sentenced for conspiracy to supply the heroin.

Both were convicted by a jury at Leeds Crown Court earlier this week; Lali of assisting an offence.

Their trial heard that three kilogrammes of heroin worth between £480,000-£600,000 was concealed in packages sent from Pakistan using air freight services but which had been detected at Heathrow Airport.

The packages were reconstituted and sent on to Lali’s address in Bradford Road, Pudsey, under close supervision. Moments after she signed for the delivery the packages were collected by Hussain, Paul Mitchell prosecuting said. Hussain was in the process of trying to recover the drugs when he was arrested.

Recorder Tahir Khan QC told Hussain, 29, of Gladstone Street, Bradford, he was satisfied he played a leading role linked to the original importation from Pakistan.

“In order to ensure the delivery was not traced back to you, you prevailed upon Kimpreet Lali to accept the delivery.

“That was a callous and wicked thing to do. You knew she had feelings towards you and you cynically exploited the hold you had over her.

“She told the jury she loved you and would have done anything you asked of her.”

He said Hussain, a director of Manpower Security, was motivated by the expectation of substantial financial gain.

He told Lali he accepted she was remorseful and had not been thinking clearly about what was involved and was unaware it was heroin.

Alastair Edie, for Lali, said she was vulnerable and lacked the knowledge over what was in the packages. A probation officer who assessed Lali told the court that she had met Hussain on the anniversary of her father’s death and was “led astray by the flattery of a handsome young man” willing to support her career as a model, having already appeared in Asian Woman magazine.

He had sponsored her in the Miss Leeds competition and she realised now in taking receipt of the packages for him she was “foolish and extremely naive”.

Stephen Uttley, for Hussain, said he had never been in trouble before shown by the amateurish aspects to the case, particularly the use of his mobile phone and the business “which was always inevitably going to lead back to him”.

Hussain told police he was unaware of the drugs and expected the order to contain uniforms for security guards he employed.