Luton drug kingpin given extra 17.5 years in prison after operating multi-million-pound empire from cell
Mohammed Imran Ali admitted being the head of a gang that sold cocaine with a street value of more than £3 million pounds while he was inside
A major Luton drug dealer who was running a multi-million-pound business from his prison cell has had his jail sentence increased by 17 and a half years after detectives cracked an encrypted phone system.
Mohammed Imran Ali and another man, Kamrul Raju, are the last to be sentenced of a huge supply ring.
Three men are already serving jail terms after admitting conspiracy to supply large quantities of cocaine.
But Bedfordshire Police officers were able to show that Ali was the ringleader.
In 2019, Ali, who was known as Immy, was on remand in Norwich prison for conspiracy to supply cocaine. In 2023 he was sentenced to 8 and half years in prison for that offence.
But while in jail, his drug supply operation continued, and he has now admitted being involved in a conspiracy to supply cocaine with a street value of more than £3 million pounds between March 2020 and August 2021.
Ali, 34, formerly of Maidenhall Road, had an illegally-held, normal phone in prison, but also had an associate outside who used the EncroChat messaging system.
This was widely used by criminals in the belief it was encrypted and entirely secure, but European investigators cracked the system in 2020.
Using that information, officers and intelligence analysts from Bedfordshire Police’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit, Operation Costello, were able to link an EncroChat phone used in drugs deals for 32 kilos of cocaine to another phone within Norwich prison which they could, in turn, link to Ali and an address where large amounts of drugs had previously been recovered.
In sentencing Ali at Luton Crown Court today (Thursday), the judge said Ali had played a leading role and that by engaging in the supply of drugs he had been trading in human misery.
Investigation Officer Gary Hales, of Bedfordshire Police, said: “It is clear that Ali is the head of a multi-million-pound Luton-based cocaine supply chain.
“Despite being in prison, he was consulted about deals being made and used his contacts to set up deals from within his cell.
“Ali’s nickname, ‘Immy’, appeared repeatedly across EncroChat data in discussions of deals.
"We know that drugs are at the heart of much of the exploitation and violence we see across Bedfordshire so by convicting people like Ali who are at the head of these operations we are making the county safer and protecting our communities.
"The length of this sentence, added to his previous sentence, reflects the severity of Ali's offences and his plan to bring in such a significant quantity of drugs. He is an extremely dangerous operator."
Another man, Kamrul Raju, 30, of Edwin Street, London admitted a charge of assisting in the facilitating of serious and organised crime and was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for two years, 240 hours unpaid work and forfeiture of £2,000.