Jailed, the gang who ‘hid’ £30m heroin haul in boot of a car

Record haul: Harminder Chana, Abdul Rob, Atif Khan and Patrick Kluster
12 April 2012

A gang who smuggled a record heroin haul into Britain by driving it through the Channel Tunnel in the boot of a car were jailed for more than 81 years today.

The group packed £30 million worth of the drug into 13 cardboard boxes and hid it in the boot of a BMW before taking it on Eurotunnel.

Dutchman Patrick Kluster, 37, calmly drove the 356 kilos of uncut heroin through Customs in his elderly mother's car.

At one point he left it parked beside the road while he had a nap at a Calais bed and breakfast.

Three members of the gang were jailed for their part in the conspiracy at Kingston crown court today. Kluster was jailed for 26 years for importing heroin at an earlier hearing.

Undercover officers had tailed Harminder Chana, 32, from east London to a service station on the M20 near Maidstone, Kent. When boxes were transferred from Kuster's BMW estate to Chana's car, the police swooped.

The drugs consignment — believed to be the largest ever seized by a UK force — was destined for three individuals or drugs consortiums in the UK.

Businessman Abdul Rob, 30, is believed to have been a key organiser of the smuggling operation which he ran from the cover of a laundry firm.

The drugs seizure has also led to investigations in the Netherlands and the arrest of key figures in an organised crime group.

Rob was found guilty of conspiracy to supply heroin and jailed for 23 years today.

Chana pleaded guilty of the same charge and was sentenced to 17 years and a fourth man, Atif Khan, 35, was jailed for 15 years after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing.

The jury also heard that Rob had been convicted at a Belgian court for a drugs conspiracy in 2000 but fled.

Detective Inspector Marion Ryan, from the Met's Central Task Force, said today: "This is the biggest heroin seizure we know of by any UK police force.

Today's result is testimony to how the Met has prevented the serious consequences this conspiracy could have had on people's lives.

"An average addict consumes 0.438 kilos of heroin in 12 months, so this seizure would be enough to keep more than 8,000 addicts in habit for a year."

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