A TAXI driver caught red-handed delivering a kilo of heroin to the Body Fuel shop in Bradford was today ordered to repay almost £6,000 of his ill-gotten gains at a confiscation hearing at Bradford Crown Court.

Khuram Riaz was jailed for five years in March last year after he was convicted by a jury of ferrying the £25,000 package of Class A drugs to Safraz Rabnawaz at the supplements store in Lilycroft Road.

Riaz, 31, of Manchester Road, Nelson, Lancashire, appeared before the court on a video link to HMP Kirkham where he is serving his sentence.

His barrister, Imran Shafi QC, said Riaz’s solicitors and the Crown’s financial investigators had agreed the sums involved ahead of the Proceeds of Crime Act hearing.

Riaz’s benefit from the drug dealing was £34,205 and the available amount he must pay back was £5,591.

Judge Colin Burn made an order in those amounts.

Riaz has three months to pay or face a further three months in jail.

During the trial, the court heard that he struggled with plain clothes police officers in the shop on the afternoon of July 2, 2018, and had to be subdued when he tried to escape.

He denied conspiring with Rabnawaz and others to bring the drugs into Bradford from Lancashire.

Riaz said he had known Rabnawaz, a weight trainer, from childhood and bought steroids and protein shakes from his shop.

He was spotted in a white BMW in a side street near the store and watched by the police as the drugs transaction took place.

He claimed he thought the arresting officers were robbers and burglars because they wore masks and baseball caps but his DNA was found on a gilet the drugs were seized from.

Prosecutor Giles Bridge said he must have been a trusted courier to be given a kilo of heroin to deliver.

“It was a large-scale operation involving the wholesaling of drugs into Bradford,” he said.

Mr Shafi said the drugs were of 53% purity, low for a wholesale consignment.

“It is a very, very unusual background for a person caught up in this sort of offending,” he told the court.

When he jailed Riaz, Judge Burn told him: “It may be the only, and it is certainly the first, criminal offence you have ever committed but it is a very serious one.

“There are all sorts of reasons why Class A drugs are a very evil sort of commerce.”