Indian-origin man sentenced in UK to nearly 10 years over £8 million drugs plot

An Indian-origin man was among five gang members jailed in the UK for a combined 84 years over a large-scale drug trafficking network that smuggled cocaine and heroin worth nearly £8 million using "ghost warehouses" and haulage routes.

In Short

• Gang members sentenced to 14-26 years for importing Class A drugs
• Over 300kg cocaine and 60kg heroin worth £8m seized
• Drugs imported via ghost warehouses using haulage routes

An Indian-origin man is among five gang members jailed in the UK for a total of 84 years for their involvement in what the Metropolitan Police described as a large-scale drugs conspiracy.

Jagjit Singh, a 30-year-old from Birmingham, was sentenced to 10 years and six months for his role within a major organised crime group responsible for importing and supplying Class A banned drugs worth millions of pounds into London.

Over the course of the investigation, more than 300 kilograms of cocaine and more than 60 kilograms of heroin, with an estimated wholesale value of almost 8 million pounds in total were seized.

The gang members were sentenced at Kingston Crown Court in south-west London on Thursday to prison terms ranging from 14 to 26 years each.

Singh had previously pleaded guilty on the first day of trial in October last year.

"This case has centred on a criminal venture planned on a gigantic commercial scale which would have likely caused violence and destruction on our streets," said Detective Constable Leon Ure from the Met Police's Specialist Crime unit, who led the investigation.

"These offenders organised a significant drug line into London and the surrounding counties over a prolonged period of time. If people wonder why we are so relentless in going after those involved in drug supply, it's because this criminality fuels violence and rips families and communities apart," he said.

The sentencing this week follows what the police force said was a "complex" investigation into the organised criminal network responsible for importing and distributing significant quantities of cocaine and heroin across the UK.

"We are very grateful to our partners for their assistance. Our coordinated response has resulted in the disruption of a major threat to public safety and has taken this group of criminals off our streets," added Detective Constable Ure.

The gang used a sophisticated method involving legitimate haulage routes and so-called "ghost warehouses" to move drugs from mainland Europe into the country.

Lorries arriving at UK ports would divert from their legitimate delivery routes to covert storage sites where drugs were secretly offloaded before the lorries continued to their intended destinations.

Drugs that were found hidden at the warehouses would be removed, repackaged and distributed onward. Men flew in from Poland specifically to assist with unloading and onward supply, often using hired cars to make short trips from the sites to distribute wholesale quantities to drug dealers.

Several other individuals linked to the organised crime group have already been convicted and sentenced for their roles in the wider conspiracy.

The investigation, led by the Met's Specialist Crime Command, began in July 2024 following surveillance of a suspect handover of boxes between cars linked to the network in Slough.

A subsequent stop by the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit led to the seizure of five kilograms of cocaine and 25 kilograms of heroin. This early interception provided crucial intelligence about the scale and logistics of the operation, the Met Police said.

In April last year, officers identified a lorry travelling from the Netherlands, making an unexplained stop at the site instead of continuing to its legitimate delivery address in Birmingham.

The driver unloaded cargo into the warehouse before Singh arrived. Police soon arrived to arrest them and seized approximately 200 kilograms of cocaine and a further 100 kilograms inside the warehouse.

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