Drugs hidden in cheese: 15 sentenced in West Yorkshire Police's biggest drugs investigation
A total of 18 people have been convicted – some of the drugs were hidden in cheese
Last updated 21 hours ago
More defendants have today been convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine following two trials, which began last year. With three more left, it will wrap up West Yorkshire Police's largest drug investigation.
4.5 tonnes of drugs, with a street value of £450 million, nearly half a billion – has now been taken off the street.
The drugs were being distributed hidden in cheese.
The investigation developed following the seizure of cocaine and ecstasy worth £2 million, which resulted from a car being stopped in the East End Park area of Leeds in January 2023. Three men were jailed over their part in those offences in July 2023.
It led officers from West Yorkshire Police uncovering a sophisticated distribution network supplying vast amounts of the drug throughout the north of England.
Police worked in collaboration with other forces and identified that the organised crime group had imported 123,568kg of cheese into the UK between December 2022 and April 2023.
123,568kg to put that in comparison, is around the same weight of 20 adult elephants.
The consignments of cheese had been transported as commercial freight into Dover, and then to a legitimate distribution hub in Derby.
Refrigerated trucks collected the shrink-wrapped pallets of cheese and delivered them to industrial units in Huddersfield, Cleckheaton, Halifax and Blackburn.
Between October 2022 and December 2023, detectives built up a detailed picture of how the criminal operation worked and those involved.
Building the case
Aiden McCullagh was shown to be managing two of the hubs - a unit in Whitacre Industrial Park, in Whitacre Street, Huddersfield, and another unit at Acorn Business Centre, in Law Street, Cleckheaton.
Saleem Chaudhri ran a unit at Yaseen Business Centre, in Sumner Street, Blackburn.
Ikraam Safdar was shown to have rented a unit at a car wash in South Parade, Halifax, which was also used as part of the operation.
Across these premises, McCullagh, with the assistance of Craig Asquith, and Chaudhri would unpackage the blocks of cocaine hidden within the large wheels of cheese and package them in brown cardboard boxes and black bin liners.
Once the drugs were ready for onward supply, a network of couriers from West Yorkshire, the West Midlands, Lancashire and the North East would descend on the areas around these distribution hubs to collect their supplies.
At Whitacre Industrial Park and Acorn Business Centre, Lewis Ockenden and Umar Farooq were trusted ‘lieutenants’ who would meet the other couriers nearby and take their vehicles from them.
They would drive the vehicles into the industrial units for them to be loaded with the allotted supplies of cocaine before returning the vehicles to the waiting couriers, who would then deliver the drugs to regional buyers.
This was done to create a layer of distance and security between the courier network and the distribution hubs.
Ockenden and Farooq would then have their own vehicles loaded with drugs and undertake their courier journeys across the UK.
A phone seized from Farooq in December 2023 contained notes that showed he had personally distributed 934kg of cocaine, with a street value of £93.4 million.
Ockenden was seen to operate at the same time and in the same manner as Farooq so was assessed to have been moving similar amounts.
At Yaseen Business Centre, Chaudhri was seen to operate similarly, driving out from the unit to meet couriers nearby and either taking their vehicles into the unit himself to be loaded or bringing the drugs to their vehicles to be loaded off site.
The West Yorkshire Police-led operation included arrests of couriers in other force areas
In April 2023, North Yorkshire Police stopped a courier on the A1(M) near Boroughbridge carrying 35kgs of cocaine. She was later jailed for six years.
On 3 May 2023, officers from Lancashire Police moved in on Chaudhri’s operation in Blackburn and found 217kg of cocaine inside the unit, with some still secreted inside large blocks of Gouda cheese. Each block of cheese was found to contain two 1kg ‘bricks’ of cocaine, which had been crudely concealed by hacking a space into each one.
The investigation of Chaudhri showed he had agreed to sell more than 2,000kg for more than £70 million between September 2022 and May 2023.
He was sentenced to 27 years and six months in prison at Preston Crown Court in April 2024 along with his main courier who received a 16-year term.
On 18 May 2023, officers from Cheshire Police intercepted a courier with 26kg of cocaine in his car on the M6 at Sandbach. He was subsequently jailed for 11 years and three months.
Following the police raid on Chaudhri’s premises in May 2023, officers observed a change in tactics by the distribution network with the use of cheese as a commodity being stopped and drugs being handed over at motorway services for a time. Later, consignments of chocolate spread and frozen fish mince were used to hide the drugs.
On 6 June 2023, a lorry driver from Belgium, was arrested at Toddington Services off the M1 in Bedfordshire after he was observed meeting a courier and transferring boxes to his car. Officers recovered 156kg from the lorry’s trailer and 36kg from the car, with a total value of £19.2 million.
The lorry driver was jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of importing and supplying cocaine. The courier was sentenced to eight years and nine months.
On 4 December 2023, officers from the West Yorkshire Police investigation team moved in to make arrests and search the premises involved.
Driver John Whittell had been seen collecting a pallet of 125kg tubs of chocolate spread from a cold storage hub at Chesterfield and delivering it to McCullagh at Whitacre Industrial Park, in Huddersfield.
Messages showed arrangements being made to collect the drugs once they had been removed from the chocolate spread, and Ockenden and Farooq were shown to be involved the movement of the drugs.
Farooq and Safdar were later arrested and messages relating to drug deliveries were found on their phones.
Officers searched Safdar’s rented unit in Halifax and found 8kg of methamphetamine hidden in a wrapped pallet of car parts.
When officers searched McCullagh’s unit at Whitacre Industrial Park they found packaging linked to his role in removing the cocaine from the food commodities and repackaging it for onward distribution.
Evidence gathered over the course of the investigation showed McCullagh ran the units at Whitacre Industrial Park and Acorn Business Centre and was responsible for distributing huge volumes of cocaine after it was removed from the deliveries of cheese and loaded into the cars of the couriers.
Craig Goulding was linked by phone contact with some of the others involved in both the West Yorkshire and Lancashire hubs, and messages showed he was paid thousands to dispose of the waste food created. He was shown to have a directing role, moving money between the hubs.
Asquith was seen at the units in Huddersfield and Cleckheaton helping McCullagh on multiple occasions to unload the refrigerated truck deliveries and prepare and load boxes of cocaine into courier vehicles.
Some defendants have already been sentenced
McCullagh, Goulding and Asquith were found guilty at trial of conspiracy to supply a Class A drug and were sentenced in May this year. McCullagh, 58, of Mill Grove, Brighouse, and Goulding, 39, of Church Lane Avenue, Wakefield, each received 25-year prison sentences. Asquith, 43, of Gill Sike Grove, Wakefield, was jailed for ten years.
Farooq, 37, of Gladstone Road, Halifax, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years. Ockenden, 35, of Midland Road, Royston, Barnsley, pleaded guilty and was given 13 years and four months. Whittell, 43, of Spa Grove, Wakefield, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years and nine months; David Jackson, 48, of Broadoak Avenue, Manchester, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years and four months
Ikraam Safdar, 44, of Willowfield Close, Halifax, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight years and nine months.
More defendants were sentenced at Leeds Crown Court today:
Aaron McNally, 38, of Ada Street, Manchester – 10 years and nine months
Brandon Eley, 31, of West Street, Tamworth – 10 years
Anthony Etheridge, 70, of no fixed address, 18 months
These people were sentenced earlier this week:
Arran Gowans, 28, of Yarm Road, Darlington was sentenced to five years and 11 months
Jordan Miles, 32, of Whinchat Close, Coventry was sentenced to 12 years and eight months, with a six month concurrent sentence for possession of indecent images
Darren Johnson, 31, of Caledine Road, Leicester was sentenced to 15 years
Harry Johnson, 26, of Caledine Road, Leicester was sentenced to 16 years with a seven month concurrent sentence for possession of drugs
Detective Inspector Kevin Daly, of West Yorkshire Police Programme Precision, said: “This was a vast and complex criminal operation involved in distributing huge quantities of cocaine that were being smuggled into the UK, mostly in what appeared to be legitimate consignments of cheese.
“The quantities of the drug involved make it the largest criminal enterprise that we as a Force have taken down, and the success of this operation is testament to the hard work and dedication of the officers involved.
“They spent many months painstakingly building up a complete picture of how the operation worked and who were the key people running it in the UK. It was only by taking the required amount of time to gather a detailed and comprehensive evidential package that we were able to dismantle this distribution network as fully as we could and ensure that those who ran it were caught and held to account.
“We know only too well the damage that drugs do in our communities, where they fuel crime and serious violence, and the negative impact they have on the lives of individual users and their families.
“Those involved in this significant criminal operation were profiting from that misery and we hope it will provide some reassurance to people to see them face the consequences of their actions.
“Tackling serious and organised criminality at this level and complexity presents a significant challenge to law enforcement both locally and internationally, but we will continue to do everything we can alongside our partner agencies to target those involved, disrupt their activities and bring them to justice.”