PORTUGUESE man who tried to smuggle more than £800,000 of heroin through Birmingham Airport has been jailed for five years. Mamad Chagani, 57, arrived at Birmingham en route from Islamabad, via Karachi and Dubai, on January 21. He was stopped and questioned by Border Force officers who became suspicious and took him to a private area where he was searched. He was found to be wearing a vest and shorts with sewn-in pockets which had 3.87 kilograms of concealed high purity heroin, with an estimated street value of £816,000. Chagani was born in Mozambique but currently lives in Portugal where he is registered as a Portuguese citizen. He told investigators that he was a businessman who dealt in the import and export of leather goods. Chagani said he was forced into being a drugs mule after he got hooked on heroin. After his business ran into financial difficulties and his mother became ill, he built up debts in Pakistan and became a heroin user. To repay the debts, he told investigators that he agreed to act as a drugs courier. Chagani pleaded guilty to the importation of a Class A drug and was sentenced to five years prison at Warwick Crown Court. Dawn Cartwright, UK Border Agency Criminal and Financial Investigation senior investigating officer, said: “This sentence should serve as a warning to anyone tempted to try and smuggle drugs. “Our officers are in the frontline of the fight to stop drugs, weapons, contraband and illegal immigrants entering the UK. Using the very latest technology, they are on constant alert to keep them out of the country. “There is no doubt that this Class A drug would have ended up on the streets of the UK, causing damage to local communities and people, if our officers had not intercepted it.”
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