Drug trafficker stripped of criminal profits

15th June 2011

A convicted drug trafficker, who was caught red handed with almost half a million pounds in cash, has been ordered to forfeit his drugs profits.

Majid Ali from Huddersfield watched from the dock as SOCA was granted a Forfeiture Order for £487,590. The Magistrate at Huddersfield Magistrates Court said he accepted the cash was recoverable property "as it was the proceeds of crime and for the furtherance of drug trafficking."

Majid Ali was a high ranking member of an organised crime gang who ran a cocaine distribution business from his flat on Meltham Road. On his arrest in September 2010, during searches of a flat he rented for the sole purpose of storing, adulterating and distributing drugs, SOCA officers seized:

• 1.2 kgs cocaine
• three 25 kgs drums of lignocaine (cutting agent for cocaine)
• a cash counting machine and scales
• drug dealer lists
• mobile phones
• £487,590 in bundles of £10 and £20 notes in holdalls inside a closed cupboard

Ali pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and money laundering and was sentenced to a total of 12 years in prison in December 2010.

Forensic evidence linked two further members of the gang, Jonathan Joseph from Dorset Walk, Dewsbury, and Mohammed Irfan Ibrah from Manchester Road, Huddersfield. Both men pleaded guilty to a number of drugs charges. Joseph was sentenced to four years in December 2010 and Ibrah is expected to be sentenced in July 2011.