A covert drug squad caught Lancashire dad-of-four making deals red-handed in a cocaine sting.https://www.lep.co.uk/news/courts/one-d ... rt-8930737One day’s work for a drugs cartel cost a Lancashire taxi driver seven years in prison.
Father-of-four Usman Mohammed claimed his only crime was to bring two traffickers together for a “one-off” cocaine deal.
But a covert police squad had been tracking the gang and nabbed the 36-year-old after he messaged the boss on his mobile phone.
Usman pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs when he appeared before Preston Crown Court.
A judge was told the £170,000 deal he set up was for 10 kilos of cocaine coming into East Lancashire.
“For one day only you played an operational role as a broker for drugs which didn’t belong to you,” Judge Kirsty-Ann Gunn told him. “Your involvement was an important one, facilitating a drug transaction.
“Cocaine causes immense damage to individuals. The court is required to pass a substantial sentence.”
The court heard Usman had initially denied having any involvement in the supply of drugs. But after seeing intelligence gathered by a specialist team of detectives he decided to admit carrying out the role of “middleman” for a day, a guilty plea accepted by the prosecution.
Judge Gunn was told a covert police investigation had been observing the activities of an organised crime gang (OCG) in East Lancashire centred on the Audley Range district of Blackburn.
The case against Usman centred on a message conversation on Boxing Day 2025 between the head of the group and an unknown phone number involving a deal to buy 10 kilos of cocaine.
The drugs were being offered at £17,000 per kilo and the gang boss was being encouraged to buy the shipment with a bulk discount of £3,500 being offered if he bought 10 kilos.
Specialist officers managed to trace the phone number ending in 1322 to a device registered to Usman. Intelligence showed the same number was on Lancashire Police files from as long ago as 1989 belonging to Usman with the nicknames “Mr T” and “T”.
To double-check they searched the phone’s movements and discovered they mirrored a number of international flights taken by Usman over a period of months.
One flight was from Heathrow to Dubai and then on to Kuala Lumpur, two others were from Manchester to Istanbul and on to Uzbekistan. There was a flight from Manchester to Marrakesh, and another from Kuala Lumpur to Goa and back to Heathrow.
When they checked the school where Usman’s children attended, they found the father’s contact number on record was the same phone.
When they visited Usman’s home in Sussex Drive, Blackburn they came across £5,000 in cash, together with various denominations of foreign currency, designer clothes and nine mobile phones. In interview he made “no comment” answers to all questions.
The court was told Usman had no previous drugs convictions – his only previous offence had been for an assault in 2007 when he was a teenager.
The prosecution said his involvement in this drugs case was as a broker or middleman. He would have had an expectation of a “significant” financial reward for his role and would have known the scale of the operation he was involved in.
Barrister Shufqat Khan, defending, told the judge: “We are dealing here with a 36-year-old man who gets himself involved in serious criminality for one day.
“This is a man who sought to make himself about £1,000 for his involvement (in this deal). He was a broker, a middleman, who involved himself for that one day, putting two parties together – and he will pay a heavy price for that.
“He is a man who is genuinely remorseful. He accepts that a custodial sentence will follow.”
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