A drugs gang who supplied flooded the country with cocaine while money laundering millions of pounds has been rumbled.

Ringleader Baljinder Kang lived a lavish lifestyle, regularly jetting off to Dubai and leasing luxury cars - and it was all funded by the ill-gotten gains from his drug empire.

Khan, along with right hand man, Sukhjinder Pooney, trafficked millions of pounds of drugs around the UK before laundering the money to company bank accounts in the UAE.

He purchased designer goods from brands including Gucci, Ralph Lauren and Harrods and owned watches worth as much as £36,000.

The drug lord, who was in regular contact with a prolific Wolverhampton drug dealer, also leased a Mercedes and an Audi A3.

One of the expensive watches owned by Kang

Black Country man Aaron Chander was observed meeting Kang at a steak restaurant in October 2017 - where they agreed a £26,000 a kilo price for 10kg of coke.

Later that month, officers watched as dealers Chander, Abda Saleh and Ferass Awwad met in a Wolverhampton pub car park for a handover of seven kilos of cocaine.

A loaded 9mm Baikal pistol and ammunition, £250,000 cash, and a quarter of a kilo of crack cocaine was recovered in a raid on Chander’s home address.

All three were arrested and later jailed for a total of more than 30 years in prison, having pleaded guilty before going to trial.

Investigators also stopped Chander's close associate as he drove from Birmingham to his Wolverhampton home.

Inside Daljinder Bassi's vehicle, they discovered three kilos of heroin.

And during a search of his home, around £750,000 of cash was found hidden in a wall cavity, accessed by a homemade pulley system.

A huge 25kg haul of cocaine, as well as heroin, hydraulic presses and mixing agents were also recovered from Bassi's property.

Bassi, who also pleaded guilty before going to trial, received a sentence of 13 years imprisonment for drugs and money laundering offences.

Kang, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to all charges against him on May 23.

Pooney was found guilty of conspiracy to supply class A drugs having previously pleaded guilty just to money laundering offences.

One of Pooney’s cash couriers, Kieran O’Kane, was also found guilty of money laundering.

Bajinder Singh KANG

Webster Kenton and Abid Rasul were convicted of conspiracy to supply class B drugs - Rasul in his absence having absconded while on bail.

Money launderers Amir Ali and Aminoor Ahmed did the same, on 23 and 24 May respectively.

Bassi, who also pleaded guilty before going to trial, later received a sentence of 13 years imprisonment for drugs and money laundering offences.

Their convictions came after police used encrypted smartphones as well as a number of unregistered ‘burner’ phones to direct the group’s activity.

Police seized more than £1.4million of cash

During the course of the investigation, officers seized more than £1.4million in cash, with at least £1.8 million more known to have been laundered by the criminal network.

The operation saw a seizure of over 37kgs of Class A drugs - including heroin and cocaine with a street level value of over £3.5m.

A handgun with ammunition and 50kgs of ketamine was also recovered.

Sukhjinder POONEY

Numerous additional drug deals, including one representing “53¾” [kg] bought, were noted in notepads found by officers searching Kang’s home address.

John Coles, NCA head of Specialist Operations, said: “This investigation has systematically broken up a significant criminal organisation which operated across the south east, west midlands and into the north of England.

“The drugs that Kang and Pooney’s group trafficked will have contributed to violence and exploitation along the supply chain, while their extensive money laundering operation exploited the UK banking system to move money offshore.”

“The threat from organised crime continues to grow, and there are many more groups in the UK engaged in similar activity to this group. The NCA and its policing partners are using all the means at our disposal to identify and disrupt them.”

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