Northampton man's key part in cocaine-dealing brothers' gang snared by police Special Ops unit

A Northampton man was a key part of an organised crime gang peddling huge quantities of drugs country-wide.

Ali Zarei was one of six men snared by a police regional Special Operations Unit which seized 6.5kg of cocaine, in excess of £150,000 cash and three encrypted handsets.

The 27-year-old, whose address was given as Derngate, last week pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply a class A drug at St Albans Crown Court

Gang leaders Ansar Akram and Ajmal Akram, two brothers from Hemel Hempstead, were jailed for up to 15 years while a third man, Ryan Blockley, from Leicester, was sentenced to five years in prison.

Detective Inspector Ian Mawdesley said: “It's apparent that Ansar and Ajmal Akram were instrumental in the distribution of a significant amount of cocaine across a huge geographical area, and to know they will be in jail and unable to bring further misery to our communities for an extended period is fantastic.

“Ansar, who headed up the group, thought nothing about directing the operation from the security of his home in an attempt to keep his hands clean, whilst putting others in the group at risk. This included his younger brother, Ajmal, who met with couriers to collect the money.

“By removing those individuals in charge of criminal gangs such as this from society, not only are we keeping them away from causing further harm but we're also stopping the flow of dangerous illegal substances across the country.

“Through monitoring their activity, we were also able to piece together the involvement of a number of other OCGs, which will feed into other investigations already taking place by police colleagues across the country.

“This outcome is the result of a painstaking operation from a large number of investigators, many of whom have spent hundreds of hours tracking the group, establishing their involvement, and compiling significant amounts of evidence. I can only thank them for their exceptional work.”

Detectives found the OCG led by the Akram brothers used encrypted phones to organise exchanges of multiple kilogrammes of cocaine at a time.

Using specialist surveillance officers over a six-month period in 2019, detectives followed the group as they travelled to Yorkshire, Dorset, Middlesbrough, Leicester, Luton, Northampton and Buckinghamshire.

They distributed substantial amounts of cocaine at a time, often selling to other localised OCGs for onward sale.

Using a network of couriers, meetings were arranged using covert encrypted devices intended to be hidden from the police. Often couriers travelled vast distances to drop off the drugs before returning immediately afterwards, all the while taking steps to disguise their activity.

The police operation climinated in October 2019 with officers arresting both Ansar and Ajmal and seizing cocaine, cash — much of it stashed in a Tesco carrier bag and phones.

Officers believe the haul is just a snapshot of the gang's activity.

Brockley acted as a regional wholesaler and was instrumental in a number of exchanges. He was also arrested in October 2019.

Two other men, Jameel Khan, aged 27 from Nottingham and 40-year old Sarfraz Arif, of Luton, are also due to be sentenced alongside Zarei on September 6.