Halifax community drugs worker is jailed as heroin fugitive

Law graduate Mahfooz Ahmed, 35, supported drug users in his hometown of Halifax and carried out research for the Government in taxpayer-funded schemes to help tackle the social problems caused by substance abuse.

But after falling into financial difficulty, he became embroiled in drug dealing and went on the run after customs officers found heroin worth £1.36m in a suitcase he had been carrying.

He committed further offences during more than five years as a fugitive, eventually becoming the subject of a European Arrest Warrant over his involvement in a major conspiracy to smuggle the drug into Britain from Turkey via mainland Europe.

Ahmed’s fall from grace emerged yesterday at Leeds Crown Court, where he was jailed for 12 years after admitting possessing heroin with intent to supply.

Prosecutor Paul Valder told the court Ahmed came to the authorities’ attention in March 2005 during an undercover surveillance operation which had targeted one of his associates, suspected criminal Babar Hussain, whose whereabouts remain unknown.

An accomplice of Ahmed’s, who has not been identified, dropped a suitcase containing 50 blocks of high-purity heroin in a Halifax street and fled after he spotted customs officers. Minutes earlier, the man had been travelling in a Skoda driven by Ahmed.

Customs officers later searched Ahmed’s home in Mayfield Drive, Halifax, and found mobile phone records which eventually linked him to other drug dealers.

Officers also found that he and Hussain had taken several flights to and from Amsterdam during the latter half of 2004, with Ahmed usually paying.

Ahmed remained at large until October last year when he was arrested in a supermarket car park in north London. At the time he was wanted by police in Belgium for offences committed between September 2007 and March 2009.

In November 2009 a court in Brussels had sentenced him to five years in prison in his absence after hearing he had been a conduit on behalf of a dealer organising shipments of heroin from Turkey to the UK via the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Two shipments contained a total of 144kg of heroin – about 12 times as much as that recovered in the suitcase in Halifax.

From June 2000 until September 2001, Ahmed had worked as a project co-ordinator on behalf of the Department of Health and the University of Central Lancashire, researching drug use in parts of Halifax among minority groups.

He went on to work for the voluntary-sector organisation Lifeline Calderdale until April 2003, providing one-to-one support with issues surrounding substance misuse.

Recorder Jonathan Bennett, sentencing, told Ahmed it was “appalling” that he had been willing to become involved in the drugs trade after seeing its effects first hand.

“You went into schools, motivating young people, telling them about drugs and the effect they were going to have on their community,” the recorder said.

Louise Wilson, defending Ahmed, said he knew he had been “immensely stupid” and had brought shame on his family.

Ahmed claimed he had run away because he had been threatened by Hussain and feared for his life.

Malcolm Bragg, assistant director of the UK Border Agency, said: “Drug smuggling is a vile business that exploits the misery of others for an easy profit. Heroin destroys the lives not only of users, but also their families and the surrounding community.”