A DRUGS courier, found with heroin worth £200,000 in his car when stopped by police in Bradford, has been jailed for more than six years.

Irfan Mahmood, 34, was a trusted courier for others, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Andrew Horton said police stopped Mahmood in his Volkswagen Passat, on the evening of May 21, as he was travelling towards the M606 on Rooley Lane, Bradford.

The vehicle was searched and a plastic bag was found behind the driver’s seat. The bag contained nearly four kilogrammes of heroin, in eight blocks.

Mr Horton said the drugs had a wholesale value of £120,000 but would have been worth £200,000 on the street. The heroin was 44 per cent pure. Two single latex gloves were also found in the car and police seized the defendant’s wallet containing £670.

Mr Horton said Mahmood had played a significant role, a large amount of drugs was involved and the defendant was motivated by financial advantage.

Mahmood, of Edmund Street, Rochdale, Lancashire, pleaded guilty to possessing heroin with intent to supply, on the basis that he was a trusted courier, and possessing criminal property, the cash. The court heard Mahmood had previously been sentenced to a mandatory five years imprisonment for possessing a firearm. He was jailed in 2009 after police found him in possession of an air pistol at a quarry in Lancashire.

Mahmood’s barrister, Imran Shafi, said they were someone else’s drugs. Mahmood had been asked to pick up the consignment and had stupidly agreed.

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Mr Shafi said Mahmood lived with his family and worked with his father, a respected businessman, in his car parts sales business. He had not offended for several years. Jailing Mahmood for six years and four months, Judge Jonathan Rose said class A drugs led to addiction, criminality, serious illness and death, and those who involved themselves in the drugs trade must expect to receive substantial sentences of imprisonment.

He said Mahmood was expecting to make money by driving the drugs from Bradford. Judge Rose said others might be less willing to take the risk if they knew couriers would receive significant prison sentences.