7:19pm Monday 6th July 2009
A Bradford man was part of a plot to smuggle almost £500,000 of heroin into the country, a jury has heard.
The drug was woven into a consignment of carpets, concealed in jacket linings and hidden in containers of baby powder, Bradford Crown Court heard.
Ansar Mahmood, 41, of Hollings Road, Girlington, denies conspiring to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation of Class A drugs between January 1 and April 25 last year.
Prosecutor Tom Storey told the jury another man, Hamid Khan, 30, of Burnley, had pleaded guilty to the offence.
Mr Storey said the plot included others not before the court.
It involved smuggling almost ten kilos of heroin with a £489,800 street value into the Bradford and Burnley areas in the first quarter of last year. The jury heard the first heroin consignment arrived at Heathrow Airport on or about April 18.
The drug was concealed in plastic tubes woven into five carpets flown to the UK on Turkish Airlines from Kurdistan.
Mr Storey said the consignment was addressed to N Khan in Hollings Road, Bradford.
Customs officials drove a spike into a carpet to reveal the heroin.
Undercover officers posed as DHL couriers to deliver fake packages containing the carpets.
Mr Storey said Mahmood was at the Hollings Road address and took delivery of the package.
The jury heard three other parcels were linked to the conspiracy. They contained heroin hidden in jacket linings and baby powder.
Mr Storey said Mahmood was implicated by mobile phone traffic with Khan.
Mahmood told police he had nothing to do with a drugs plot. He denied he signed for the delivery of carpets, saying he could not speak or write English. He claimed the officers left the package on his settee. The trial continues.
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