A BRADFORD man was part of a plot to smuggle heroin with a street value of £37 million found hidden in a Jaguar being imported into the UK, a court heard.

The battered X-type car had no ignition, no electrics and could not be driven, but was "rammed" with 316 packets of the drug hidden in the bumpers, wheel arches, the dashboard, central consul, spare wheel compartment, engine and rear seating.

Noman Qureshi, 32, of Brackenhill Mews, Great Horton, is standing trial at Luton Crown Court with Israr Khan, 35, of St Ethelbert Avenue, Luton, and Mohammed Safder, 43, of Sidney Elson Way, East Ham, London, for his alleged part in the "high level crime".

Prosecutor Gordon Aspden told the jury that on Sunday, December 1 last year, the car arrived at Felixstowe port in a container ship from Pakistan.

Documents for customs prepared by a man in Karachi, stated it was being imported for repair. It was the third time that the man had been involved in sending a Jaguar to the UK for repair. The two other cars had been taken to Bolton and Sheffield in March and August last year.

Mr Aspden said unbeknown to the defendants they had been under National Crime Agency (NCA) surveillance in November and December.

On Friday, December 6 Qureshi drove a Lexus from his home in Bradford to Luton where he met Khan. Khan then drove both of them in a Vauxhall Zafira to a service road at the Holiday Inn in Ilford where they met Safder, who was driving a Volkswagen Golf.

The court was told the third Jaguar had been delivered to a repair business in Hayes, Middlesex, but before work was carried out a driver was asked, on the Friday evening, to take it on a low loader to garage Ley Street in Ilford.

All three defendants waited for the Jaguar to be delivered and were "very, very jumpy", said the prosecutor.

The low loader driver was then contacted and told to take the Jaguar to a different address - Church Elm Lane, Dagenham - where Safdar's brother had a garage.

All three defendants went to Dagenham, though Safdar had to leave because bail conditions imposed by the police, who had arrested him for the theft of a car, meant he had to be at home by 11pm. The car theft charge was not proceeded with, said the prosecutor.

The NCA officers watched as the car was unloaded at about midnight on the forecourt of the garage. But Khan and Qureshi were "spooked" and left the scene, leaving the Jaguar, packed with heroin, on the garage forecourt.

Khan and Qureshi were seen in the Zafari at 1.30am by Bedfordshire police who followed them. After a pursuit, the car was stopped and the two men were arrested.

Safdar was arrested in February this year.

The Jaguar was scanned with X-ray equipment and examined by police, said Mr Aspden.

He said: "There were 316 packets of drugs weighing a total of 230 kilos. It was heroin. The strength was extraordinarily high at 79 per cent. It had a potential street value of over £37 million.

"The Jaguar was rammed with drugs - no doubt from the fields of Afghanistan. This was high level crime. The drugs were packaged in different coloured bags for different customers - yellow, orange, blue, red and green."

The prosecutor alleged the three defendants would have been trusted to do the job and, if things went wrong, to keep their mouths shut.

All three defendants deny conspiracy to supply Class A drugs

The trial continues.