£7.5m heroin crime 'on industrial scale'

A judge at Leeds Crown Court passed sentences totalling more than 150 years on Ryder, Nazir and six other men involved in the conspiracy.

The court heard the apartment in Bradford was used as a "bash house" where smuggled blocks of heroin were diluted or "cut" with cheap powders, before being repackaged and sold on.

Ryder's gang operated internationally, importing the heroin into the UK with "military precision", while Nazir's gang received the drug for cutting and onward supply down the chain in the North and Midlands.

The court heard the two gangs began co-operating after Nazir travelled to Turkey to establish heroin supplies and then made contact with Ryder to organise the drug's delivery to Germany or Holland and safe onward transport into the UK.

Officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, who had been monitoring one of the conspirators, worked with Dutch police in the inquiry, bugging phone calls and secretly filming gang members' meetings.

Discarded packaging found at the flat indicated that at least 125kg of heroin of a purity of between 50 and 60 per cent had been dealt with there.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC told the conspirators: "It is not only the amount which had been imported which is relevant, but also that the fact that the agreement into which each of you entered clearly had as its aim, importation and distribution of further heroin on an industrial scale."