The boss of a fake Bradford college, set up to facilitate a half a million pound heroin importation and money laundering plot, is today starting a 16-year jail sentence.

Mohammed Faisal, 32, was led, shouting and struggling, from the dock at Bradford Crown Court after he was convicted yesterday of drug smuggling and money laundering.

The six-week trial had been told that Pakistan-born Faisal, of Tyne Street, Wapping, Bradford, was managing director of Yorkshire College in Manningham Lane, Manningham.

Roohul Amin, 35, of Raglan Terrace, Thornbury, Bradford, who was the college’s financial director, was also jailed for 16 years after he was found guilty.

Prosecutor Peter Moulson told the trial that Yorkshire College Ltd was formed in November 2004 to assist overseas students to gain qualifications and/or college placements in England.

Sentencing yesterday, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Faisal, Amin and another man, Abdul Saboor, created a completely false college.

The judge said: “It was not false in the sense that it offered bona fide courses to some. But it’s real purpose was significantly to facilitate this offence.

“The question of the danger, risk and problem caused by such institutions has been exposed by our journalists.”

A third man, Ali Iftikhar, 39, of Thornbury Crescent, Thornbury, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment after he was convicted of money laundering but cleared of the drugs conspiracy.

Faisal’s brother, Mohammed Alamgir, 26, of Tyne Street, left the dock in tears after he was found not guilty of both charges.

Faisal’s wife, Patricia Malicka, 30, of Tyne Street, the college’s administration director, denied both charges and was found not guilty, on the directions of the judge, during the trial.

Prosecutor Mr Moulson had told the jury some of the people at the college were concerned at the importation of heroin from Pakistan. Amin leased the Manningham Lane premises.

The drug was hidden in parcels of clothing from Pakistan and delivered to prepared addresses in Bradford during the conspiracy, which ran from 2006 to June 2008 when the defendants were arrested.

The authorities seized nearly 13kgs of heroin, with a street value of nearly £650,000.

AA Travel, in Leeds Road, Bradford, run by Iftikhar and Amin, was responsible for sending international money transfers. More than £1m passed through the hands of the company which could not be reconciled to accounting records.

Judge Durham Hall said: “This was a determined and well-planned international conspiracy.”

He said it was beyond imagination that Amin, an “apparently religious man”, should not only involve himself in this wicked and godless deed, but should also dare to try and hide behind the life-threatening illness suffered by his little girl.”