AN INTERNATIONAL gang of drug smugglers have been sentenced to a total of 49 years in prison after police seized a £2.3 million haul of heroin, cannabis and amphetamines.
After a tip-off from the German police force following a joint investigation, Metropolitan Police officers saw two of the gang – Inan Uckac and Fikret Hyuseinov – meet at an industrial estate in Waltham Abbey on February 5, 2010.
Hyuseinov, a lorry driver from Bulgaria, was arrested at Dover on February 21 last year, and police found an assault rifle, a Beretta semi-automatic handgun, 186 kilograms of cannabis and 12 kilograms of amphetamine paste in his vehicle.
The same day, Uckac, a Turkish national living in Islington, was arrested at his home and officers found evidence linking him to the smuggling when they searched the garage at which he worked.
At Woolwich Crown Court yesterday (Monday, January 17), Uckac, 38, and Hyuseinov, 52, were sentenced to 15 years each after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to supply class B drugs and two counts of possession of a firearm.
Two other members of the gang, German national Taskin Sarsilmaz, 28, and 27-year-old Akmal Taj, of Sutton Coldfield, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs and were sentenced to 10 years and nine years respectively.
Taj was arrested in the West Midlands on February 8 when police caught him transporting four kilograms of heroin, while Sarsilmaz was arrested at Dover on February 23.
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