SHAME SHAME
TAXI DRIVER DRUGS GANG BROUGHT DOWN IN £9 MILLION PLYMOUTH STING
Six members of a gang which flooded Plymouth with al- most a ton of can- nabis worth more than £9 million have been jailed for 20 years plus. The Plymouth Her- ald reports that seven men in all brought the drug to the city from Lon- don in 89 deliveries over 18 months. But police busted a huge cannabis deal in a Plymouth sub- urb last June – seizing more than £50,000 in one car and almost ten kilo- grams of cannabis in the other. Driver Peter Stewart told officers there was “s***loads” of cannabis in the car, Plymouth Crown Court heard. Prosecutors claim that the gang brought 910 kilo- grams – close to a metric ton – of can- nabis to Plymouth with a street value of £9.1 million. Jailing six defen- dants for a total of just over 22 years, Judge Ian Lawrie said the exact amount of drugs brought to Plymouth could not be calcu- lated. But he added the amount of drugs was “considerable”. The hearing was interrupted as the wife of one of the imprisoned defen- dants collapsed at the back of the courtroom and be- gan shouting hys- terically. She was taken from the court by staff, including a
38
work and pays £1,000 prosecution costs.
Gang ringleaders Nicholas Doyle and Tam Tran jailed for a total of almost 12 years
trainee paramedic. Nicholas Doyle, 32, and Londoner Tam Tran, who refuses to give his age, worked together to bring cannabis down the M5. Doyle used fellow Plymothians Stew- art, 40, and Doyle’s former brother-in- law Paul Marr, 30, in the operation, the court heard. Vietnamese Tran hired three London taxi drivers, Sunder Ahuja, 48; Abdul Shirzad, 48 and Amrik Lamba, 41, to
run the drugs from the capital. Tran was jailed for six years and three months; Doyle for five years and six months; Ahuja for three years and six months and Shirzad for two years and six months. Stewart and Lamba were both locked up for two years and four months. Marr was given a 15- month prison sen- tence, suspended for two years on condition he does 200 hours’ unpaid
Judge Lawrie said drugs shipped to Plymouth brought misery to the city. Talking of the taxi drivers, he added: “These defendants chose money over the fact they were participants in a serious crime. “Their clear good qualities and res- ponsibilities did not inhibit their offend- ing. These are men with children and responsibilities as parents and they therefore should have known better than involve them- selves in a drug supply arrangement whereby drugs and all their attendant misery were being shipped to
Ply-
mouth.” Doyle, Stewart and Marr, all from Ply- mouth; Tran, of no fixed address; and Lamba, from West Drayton, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class B drug between Nov-
Piles of drugs seized from the gang by police
The London taxi drivers who ferried the drugs (l-r) Sunder Ahuja, Abdul Shirzad and Amrik Lamba
ember 2015 and June last year. Ahuja, from South- all, and Shirzad, from Hounslow, both denied the joint charge but were convicted by a jury after a trial in November. They claimed they made trips – 46 for Ahuja – with Tran from London to Ply- mouth but had no idea they were deliv- ering drugs. Police who had the gang under surveil- lance for weeks swooped on two cars in Military Road, Efford, Plymouth on June 21 last year. Officers stopped Stewart driving a Vauxhall Zafira con- taining 9.8 kilo- grams of cannabis in two bags. Lamba was stopped driving a Ford Gal- axy with Tam Tran in the back seat. The Vietnamese had £52,600 in cash at his feet – money which he had been paid by Stewart for the drugs. Police searched Doyle’s home and
found £2,500 in cash. Officers raided his business
premises
of Plymouth Ford Spares in Robor- ough. They found a total of seven kilo- grams of cannabis split between three drums. Officers also search- ed a lock-up at Laira Battery and found a further 250 grams of cannabis. Police traced 91 trips from London to Ply- mouth, where Tran and the taxi drivers delivered drugs – often to the lock-up. Tran and the couri- ers usually turned around and headed back up the A38 minutes later. Judge Lawrie heard the case, which opened last month, and mitigation on behalf of Doyle, Tran and Stewart. He ordered that £64,460 seized and disclaimed by the defendants will be donated to local charities. He thanked the offi- cers for their “thor- ough investigation”.
APRIL 2018
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