Five main operators get a combined total of 31 years. Drug lines operating across East Lancashire were run from stash houses around Burnley.
The scale of the operation was such that Lancashire Constabulary officially labelled the Burnley based network as an OCG – ‘Organised Crime Group’. From January to May 2022, the police investigated the Burnley based gang as the main part of ‘Operation Marina’.
Heroin and crack cocaine was weighed, bagged and distributed from properties in Burnley and Cliviger for distribution and sale across East Lancashire as part of the ‘Casper’ and ‘Ace’ drug lines operated by Adeel Khan and Javed Miah.
Adeel Khan was the main man at the heart of the network, closely supported by Javed Miah. Although from Bradford, Adeel Khan maintained a ‘stash house’ on Todmorden Road in Burnley. Other properties across the town and in Cliviger were used to safe house drugs and money, but Khan’s Burnley stash house was the centre of the network, supplying drug dealers and street pushers across the towns of East Lancashire.
The key five players who were arrested and sentenced were: Adeel Khan from Bradford, but operating out of a property in Burnley were: Javed Miah from Burnley. Kasim Amin from Cliviger. Faisal Hussain of No Fixed Abode. Matthew Hefford of No Fixed Abode. Also in court and arrested at the same time in May 2022; Faisal Khan from Burnley and Gabrielle Hughes from Cliviger. The ethnic makeup of the drugs gang speaks for itself.
A quantity of Class A drugs, equipment for weighing and bagging, money and weapons were seized by police when they raided the house on Todmorden Road, Burnley and at the property in Cliviger. Given all the evidence uncovered, the court was told that the Burnley gang had sold at least £300,000 worth of Class A drugs through the Casper and Ace drug lines.
At the end of the trial, the five main operators of the drug network were sentenced to a combined total of 31 years in prison. Lesser sentences were passed on Faisal Khan and Gabrielle Hughes. The court heard that Adeel Khan had a record of 16 previous convictions; Javed Miah had 23 previous convictions for no less than 49 offences. Matthew Hefford had a string of previous convictions and was a well known drug-addict.
After the court passed sentence on the gang, Lancashire Constabulary issued a press statement to say that a major drug network operating across East Lancashire had now been taken down.
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Images: Lancashire Police.
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