Jail for woman found with £8.5m stash of heroin

A woman has been jailed for 21 years and six months after National Crime Agency (NCA) officers found £8.5m worth of heroin stashed in her bedroom.

Sidrah Nosheen, 34, from Bradford, was part of an organised crime group smuggling heroin from Pakistan to the UK and selling it around the country, the NCA said.

When Nosheen was arrested at her home in June 2024, officers found heroin hidden in clothes which had been delivered to her, as well as in bags and in a wallpaper pasting table, scales, buckets and tools.

After Nosheen's sentencing at Bradford Crown Court on Tuesday for conspiracy to supply and import heroin, Rick MacKenzie, from the NCA, said she was "at the centre of a large plot".

"To outward appearances, Sidrah Nosheen lived an unremarkable life in Bradford," he said.

"But the truth is, she was at the centre of a plot to move large amounts of heroin around the country, dealing in the addiction and death that are inseparable from the Class A drugs trade."

According to the NCA, when officers were searching Nosheen's home, on Woodside Road in Wyke, after her arrest, they also found boxes of plastic-wrapped clothing waiting to be opened, along with the remnants and debris of boxes already processed.

Hundreds of phone messages to an accomplice in Pakistan about supplying heroin in the UK were also discovered.

Meanwhile, evidence was found that Nosheen had distributed multi-kilo drugs consignments to people in the UK, and on one occasion she had collected £250,000 for the organised crime group from a criminal in Bradford.

Nosheen had been due to stand trial at Bradford Crown Court, but was sentenced after changing her plea and admitting conspiracy to supply heroin and conspiracy to import heroin.

Mr MacKenzie said Nosheen "didn't give a second's thought to the damage heroin wreaks on society, she was solely interested in making money".

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