UK woman jailed for over 21 years after heroin worth £8.5m found in her bedroom

LONDON: A woman has been jailed for 21 years and six months after the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) officers found £8.5m worth of heroin in her back bedroom.

Sidrah Nosheen, 34, was part of an organised crime group (OCG) that smuggled heroin from Pakistan to the UK and sold it around the country, according to NCA.

Nosheen played a crucial role for the OCG.

Heroin concealed in clothes such as leather jackets was delivered to Nosheen’s home in Woodside Road, Wyke, Bradford, where she removed it and put it in 1kg deal bags.

When she was arrested at the property in June 2024, officers discovered her back bedroom had been converted into a heroin processing plant.

Officers found 85kg of the Class A drug in various bags along with a wallpaper pasting table, scales, buckets, and tools.

There were also boxes of plastic-wrapped clothing waiting to be opened, and the remnants and debris of boxes already processed.

Phone evidence revealed hundreds of messages with an accomplice in Pakistan about supplying heroin in the UK.

And there was also evidence that she distributed multi-kilo drugs consignments to UK contacts and on one occasion collected £250,000 for the OCG from a criminal in Bradford.

She was due to stand trial at Bradford Crown Court, but changed her plea and admitted conspiracy to supply heroin and conspiracy to import heroin.

She returned to court on Tuesday and was sentenced.

Rick MacKenzie, NCA senior investigating officer, said: “To outward appearances, Sidrah Nosheen lived an unremarkable life in Bradford.”

“But the truth is that she was at the centre of a plot to move large amounts of heroin around the country, dealing in the addiction and death that are inseparable from the Class A drugs trade.”

“She didn’t give a second’s thought to the damage heroin wreaks on society, she was solely interested in making money. The NCA works at home and abroad to protect the public from the threat of Class A drugs.”