DRUGS ‘lieutenants’ in one of Lancashire and Yorkshire’s best-established supply chains have been jailed for nearly 20 years after being caught with a stash of heroin and a handgun.

Nadeem Abbas and next-door neighbour Zaheer Mahmood have been imprisoned for their roles in a drugs network which stretched from Accrington to Bradford.

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Abbas, 33, and Mahmood, 49, were caught with heroin valued at £40,000, along with a hydraulic press which is used in the manufacture of street drugs, after police raided a house in Persia Street in November 2013, as part of a series of co-ordinated busts across the two counties.

Further searches of the house as part of the inquiry, codenamed Operation Kaitlyn, uncovered a handgun, silencer and ammunition, hidden underneath the bed of Abbas.

Abbas insisted he had only moved from Nelson to Accrington, looking for work, after being promised a takeaway job by a member of the drugs gang, Kashif Hamid.

Mahmood eventually confessed to knowing about the drugs operation, after being asked to ‘bag up’ heroin, but denied any knowledge of the handgun, silencer and ammunition.

Taxi driver Mahmood had driven over to Bradford at one point in order to pick up a cutting agent to be used for adulterating heroin - but Abbas insisted he thought the trip was to pick up cheap alcohol.

Abbas’ fingerprints were also found on the drugs press, but he claimed he thought that the device was going to be used in a proposed takeaway venture.

The pair were each convicted of the drugs conspiracy and possession of the firearms after a two-week long trial at Burnley Crown Court. Mahmood was jailed for 12 years and Abbas for seven-and-a-half years.

Judge Graham Knowles QC, speaking at an earlier hearing, said: “It is inevitable for offences of this seriousness that the defendants are going to prison for a long time.”

Hamid, who lived in Portland Street, Accrington, was previously jailed for his role in the drugs conspiracy at Bradford Crown Court last year, when Judge Jonathan Durham Hall labelled the gang as a ‘sophisticated and planned enterprise’.

The Accrington men were under the command of blind university graduate Rizwan Arshad, who controlled three separate drugs rings, two in the Bradford and Huddersfield areas, and the remaining one in East Lancashire.

Arshad, who appeared to be living on disability benefits, in fact had a second home in Salford Quays and made trips to Dubai, Mauritius and Amsterdam, police observations showed.

He was jailed for 21 years after being stopped in a taxi in Bradford city centre carrying £108,000 in bundles of notes. Three other men from Yorkshire and Kent were jailed for a total of 23 years.