Bradford crime boss jailed over torture and murder of his uncle and importing £125m worth of drugs
A Bradford crime boss has been jailed after torturing and murdering his own uncle and importing £125 million worth of Class A drugs.
Investigations by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and West Yorkshire Police led to Tahir Syed, 42, being found guilty on all counts following a five-week trial. He was sentenced to a minimum of 34 years behind bars at Leeds Crown Court today (Friday, June 13).
Presenting at the sentencing hearing, the Crown revealed Syed and his co-conspirators imported five tonnes of cocaine and heroin, with a wholesale value of £125 million, to the UK in more than 30 shipments from 2016 to 2021.
Consignments of up to 200 kilos were smuggled in on each occasion hidden among frozen chicken inside lorries. Each time the drugs would be delivered from the Netherlands to a store in Bradford rented by Syed. By the summer of 2019, Syed's criminal underlings were under NCA surveillance.
Nigel Coles, NCA senior investigating officer, said: “We have successfully prosecuted and gained significant custodial sentences against individuals at every level of this crime group, dismantling Syed's large-scale international operation from top to bottom.
“And justice has now been served to one of Britain's biggest crime bosses. This result is a culmination of extensive investigations led by teams here at the NCA and at West Yorkshire Police.
“I hope Syed's conviction provides some sense of justice to the family of Asghar Badshah, who sadly had his life taken by a man who would stop at nothing to protect his criminal empire.”
On September 17, 2019 his right-hand man Yusuf Kara, 36, was observed moving heavy bags between vehicles alongside Imran Khan Ashraf, also 36, in Bradford.
Ashraf was stopped and arrested in Bolton, and a vacuum-packed bag containing just shy of £130,000 was found hidden inside his vehicle. The cash was seized along with four mobile phones. Kara was arrested later the same afternoon in Bradford by West Yorkshire Police officers, who seized two mobile phones from him.
Meanwhile, NCA officers searched his home address and discovered 51 kilos of heroin. As the news of the arrest reached Syed, he set about fleeing the UK, knowing the contents of his lieutenant's phones would implicate him as the crime group's kingpin.
Photos found on Kara's phone included invoices for consignment shipments and large quantities of cash, as well as snaps of Syed driving a forklift truck used to offload drug deliveries.
Syed returned to West Yorkshire briefly two months later, as he believed his uncle Asghar Badshah, a Bradford bus driver aged 39 at the time, had stolen money from him. He arranged and paid for Asghar Badshah to undertake a lie detector test in an attempt to find out if he had stolen the money.
Once Syed was told his uncle had failed, he hatched a plan to kidnap and interrogate him with the support of his accomplice Qaisar Shah, 40.
Asghar Badshah was kidnapped by Syed, Shah and three men from Surrey on the night of November 29, 2019 and taken to a disused vault inside a former branch of Yorkshire Bank.
He was tortured through the night as Syed attempted to extract information about the missing money. He died as a result of the prolonged attack.
Detective Chief Superintendent Heather Whoriskey, West Yorkshire Police senior investigating officer, said: “Syed kidnapped, tortured and murdered his own Uncle for information as he believed that Asghar had stolen money from him.
“This perceived debt was about more than just money, it was about Syed's reputation and role as an international drug trafficker. Syed was a professional criminal who would import and distribute huge amounts of cocaine and heroin.
“Shortly after the murder Syed fled the country and continued to traffic drugs across the continent.”
Asghar Badshah was reported missing by his family and a sustained West Yorkshire Police search led to the discovery of his body on December 29, 2019 - a month after his kidnapping. A post-mortem examination found he was struck with a blunt object at least 48 times on his head, neck, torso, and all four limbs.
His body was found wrapped in a cloth and hidden on a shelving unit inside the vault. A false wall had also been built on the staircase leading down to the vault in a bid to prevent the body being discovered.
Syed then left the UK again on December 5, 2019, having returned for less than a fortnight, and travelled from Albania to Kosovo, and then onto Turkey using a false North Macedonian passport.
While overseas he continued to run his drug trafficking empire, and his crime group arranged for huge shipments of up to 200 kilos of cocaine and heroin to be smuggled into the UK.
Some of the shipments were seized by law enforcement, including 155 kilos of cocaine seized by the Dutch authorities in August 2020.
Syed was arrested in Turkey on November 11, 2021 following a global manhunt, and after fighting extradition for two years, was brought back to the UK to stand trial.
DCS Whoriskey added: “Today's sentence is the culmination of years of hard work. We would like to thank our partners at the National Crime Agency for assisting us in bringing Syed back to this country to face his crimes.
“This has been a lengthy and trying ordeal for the family of Asghar Badshah. They have been courageous, patient and brave throughout the whole process.
“Although today's sentence will never bring him back, I hope it gives his family some comfort and closure knowing that the man responsible for his death has been sentenced for his murder.”
Qaisar Shah, 40, was jailed for 18 years after being convicted of manslaughter, conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to possess criminal property. Yusuf Kara, 36, was jailed for 10 years and six months.
Nine other men, prosecuted as part of the operation, were sentenced to a total of 71 years behind bars between them.